Compensation Bill [Lords]

And more, as my hon. Friend says. I cannot see why Durham NUM could not have received a success fee or other fee from Thompsons. I think it totally wrong that poor individual claimants should have to fund Durham NUM. I understand I have been denounced in several quarters, including in the upper House last week in a debate on miners’ compensation by Lord Sawyer, a former general secretary of the Labour party. To be fair to him, he says:"““Since standing down from my main roles in the labour movement, I have become the non-executive chair of the supervisory board for Thompsons Solicitors and I declare that interest.””" That is fine, and I have to say I agree with much of his speech, which attacks the way in which unscrupulous solicitors have deducted moneys. However, he went into the territory of the Durham NUM, on which he has certainly never spoken to me, making comments for which the evidence, I have to say, is weak to non-existent. He says that funds are being used in the Durham area to fight miners’ knee cases and possible surface worker cases that have not yet been funded. I am aware of only one case that Durham NUM has funded for surface workers, but the red herring about miners’ knee cases seems to have come up only since I began to raise these issues. Lord Sawyer seems to condemn what has been said here:"““In reading the debates in another place on this issue and looking at some recent comments, it is possible to think that this is all about individual consumers in cases against big employers or insurers without trade union backing. That would be a big mistake. Let us condemn law firms and claims companies who exploit workers’ cases by all means, as we are doing tonight, but let us not in the process damage trade unions and their trusted lawyers who are, at the end of the day, the only ones with the commitment, capability or expertise to fight the major cases””." It worries me that Lord Sawyer is an individual who is supposed to be on the supervisory board of Thompsons solicitors but who has not even taken the trouble to see how those solicitors are acting with the NUM in Durham. If he was doing his job properly, he would be asking the questions I am asking. That raises the question of what he is being paid for—I assume he is paid—as a member of the supervisory board; or is he just being paid to be an advocate for Thompsons solicitors in this place?