Compensation Bill [Lords]

This has been described as a small Bill, but I believe that it will have a dramatic effect outside the goldfish bowl of Westminster. Part 2 is vital to the cleaning up of the most disreputable part of the semi-legal profession, the claims handlers. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and I have described the trauma and heartache that those organisations have caused in former coalmining communities. I congratulate the Government on their proposals to tighten up the claims handling industry, and I hope that the Bill will lead to its abolition and disappearance. I also congratulate the Minister and her team. I agree with what the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) said about her open-door policy: she has been prepared to listen to my representations and those of other Members. She has also pushed through a vital measure, new clause 13, which will have a dramatic effect on the lives of thousands of mesothelioma sufferers. Before I entered the House I was a full-time trade union official. I dealt with asbestos-related claims on a daily basis, and witnessed the heartache not just of individuals when they were diagnosed, but of their families afterwards. Some of them—mainly men—were only in their forties. No amount of compensation can make up for the misery and cruel deaths that those people suffer, or for the heartache that their families undergo, but I believe that the new clause will right a wrong. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham), who chairs the all-party asbestos group, on his tremendous work in pursuing not just this issue but the general issue of asbestos victims. This is a good Bill. When people ask what the difference between a Conservative and a Labour Government is, we can say that although the all-party support for new clause 13 was welcome, it would probably not have been there without a Labour Government. We should not forget that, when we ask how Labour can make a difference in constituencies.