I do, indeed, remember that. I remember having long conversations about pleural plaques with the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn), who has been a long-time campaigner on the issue. As it happens, I disagreed with the idea of compensating pleural plaques. Everybody involved with this Bill well knows that I am passionate about mesothelioma—a disease from which people will die, and quickly—but I have never thought of extending the provisions to other diseases. I supported what the industry did on pleural plaques, but I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point.
Let me quickly turn to the issue of benefit recovery. While I agree that this scheme should follow civil procedures and recover benefits from those who have received payments until their compensation has been paid, I think it incredibly unfair that a claimant who is getting the equivalent of 75% compensation to that from a civil claim must repay 100% of his benefits. To return to the main point of the Bill, the claimant is accessing the scheme because of poor practices by employers and insurers after having been negligently exposed to asbestos. I feel that the victim is the one who will lose out here, so I hope we get an opportunity to look carefully at the recovery issue in Committee.
Finally, let me briefly mention secondary exposure. I understand why diagnosis of mesothelioma caused by secondary exposure from asbestos is excluded from this Bill, but this is an area that I genuinely hope the Department is looking at pursuing. The numbers are small, but I would hazard a pretty good guess that most victims of secondary exposure will be women, who are sufferers of this dreadful cancer purely because they did their wifely duty and washed their husband’s overalls. These women deserve to be compensated, too. They receive payment under the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008, so it is an accepted cause of suffering, but a proper compensation scheme should be considered for the future.
While I worked in the industry, I campaigned hard for better, faster justice for those who would die from mesothelioma. I may have been an irritant in the industry, but I was passionate that, after decades of poor behaviour, something had to change. Improvements were made and I was proud to be a part of those small, but important developments. However, in the middle of a constant stand-off between insurers and lawyers remains a person who will die a most horrible death, and at present this Bill, while welcome in principle, still puts too much in the pockets of other interested parties. I hope that Ministers both in this place and the other place will remain open-minded and listen to the concerns of colleagues on both sides and ultimately be willing to go back to the insurers and lawyers and fight just a little harder for the victims of mesothelioma. To my mind, it is the very least that they deserve.
6.28 pm