I thank my hon. Friend. I will cover that during the next 30 minutes of my speech.
The regulatory impact assessment estimates that approximately 6,000 mesothelioma sufferers lost about £800 million in compensation due to untraced insurance. If we add the cost to victims of other asbestos-related diseases, the deal cooked up between the Government and their friends in the insurance industry represents a saving to insurers of some £1 billion. On average, the 75% figure means that individuals will lose up to £43,000 in each claim and that victims are absorbing 25% of the ongoing costs due to insurers losing or destroying their policy records.
Secondly, there is the exclusion of other diseases. Why is this about mesothelioma only? The employers’ liability insurance for which the employers paid premiums covered them for claims arising from all “bodily injury or disease”, not just asbestos-related disease, and certainly not just mesothelioma. By limiting the scheme to mesothelioma, the Bill excludes 50% of all victims. Those suffering from asbestos-related lung cancer, asbestosis and pleural thickening have been cast aside. Among other industrial prescribed diseases that might be considered—I pick this one out of the air—is baker’s asthma, a disease that is crippling for people who work in the baking industry, whereby they suffer the same conditions although it does not have such drastic problems with regard to latency and shortened life expectancy. There are all sorts of different diseases, including baker’s asthma and other asbestos-related diseases, that should be covered by the Bill. It is a decent Bill, but we do not want a decent Bill: we want a good Bill.
If the Bill included 50% of asbestos victims, that would represent just 20% of the total cost. It is not acceptable that the scheme is limited to just mesothelioma. The Government’s justification for excluding other diseases is to say that proving causation is simpler for mesothelioma, because asbestos is its only known cause. However, there is already a successful precedent, namely the Turner and Newall Asbestos Trust, which administers payments of claims for not just mesothelioma, but other asbestos-related diseases. The Bill should be extended to cover all long-tail latent industrial diseases prescribed under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979.
The third issue is the cut-off date, which has been mentioned by many Members. The cut-off date of 25 July 2012 is unbelievable, especially given that the consultation began in February 2010. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that the cut-off date should be 1969, which was the date of guilty knowledge.