The Opposition welcome this opportunity to put a scheme into law that will provide a measure of payment to victims of what we are all agreed is a most horrific and terrible disease. I pay tribute to Ministers in this Government and past Governments who have worked over many years to bring us to the point we reach today, and also to Members of all parties who have been so determined to fight for the best possible deal for victims of this terrible disease. May I also place on record my thanks to campaigners who have been actively and determinedly lobbying for many years for justice for victims, including trade union campaigners and especially the victim support groups around the country who I know have been in contact with many of us about the very complex and technical details of this Bill? I also want to echo the Minister’s thanks to his officials, who have been extremely helpful, in this Chamber and the other place, and to both Opposition and Government spokespeople, in ensuring that we all have a full understanding of the often complex and technical analysis of the likely consequences of different scenarios, which we sought to test as we considered the Bill.
The Minister said a few moments ago that the Bill is not perfect and we concur. We are pleased to have made the progress we have, but we regret that there have been some missed opportunities which many of us feel did not need to be missed. There was scope to have gone at least a little further than we have managed tonight. The Bill could be so much better than it is and, in the House of Lords, in Committee, on Second Reading and again this afternoon and this evening, Members on both sides of the House have highlighted its deficiencies and have suggested very constructive, practical—and affordable, where cost implications have been involved—ways to remedy them. It is disappointing that the Minister has felt under such pressure from the deal that has been done with the industry that he has been unable to accept any of the amendments, which I think have been brought forward in a very constructive manner. I think the Minister himself said that that has been the spirit in which we have sought to make the changes we have advanced.
However, we welcome the promise that the regulations that we will shortly be studying will provide for a review of the operation and effects of the scheme in four years’ time. We are determined to see that provision appearing in the regulations, and Members across the House will be equally anxious in four years’ time to hold Ministers to a full, meaningful and effective review that genuinely addresses the operation and consequences of the scheme and the potential for its expansion and extension.
It is a matter of concern that we are passing legislation today that we already think will need improvement in four years’ time. I hold the rather old-fashioned view that we ought to try to get legislation right first time, and it is a shame that we already know that Parliament will want to come back to certain areas of this legislation after four years. Mention has been made repeatedly during the passage of the Bill of the areas involved. They include: eligibility; access to the scheme; the cost of running and administering the scheme; the processes surrounding the scheme; the funding of research into the treatment and cure for mesothelioma; and, of course, the generosity of the scheme. There is a clear need for us
to make progress in the development of each of those areas, and I believe that the Bill should have been used to ensure that progress.
On the question of generosity, it is widely agreed that there is no moral case whatever for sufferers to receive a payout of less than 100%. Even if we accept that there is a constraint on 100% payouts that is dictated by affordability—the industry has suggested that that affordability is restricted to an amount set at 3% of gross written premium—I suggest that that figure is laughably small in the context of a multi-billion pound industry that has been collecting premiums and avoiding payouts for decades. There should have been some scope for pushing the industry for more.
Regrettably, the amendments to introduce an earlier start date, to increase the level of payouts and, crucially, to protect the 3% levy were all rejected by the House. The Minister was reluctant to accept them, and the House did not vote for them. Those amendments would have meant: more money for victims; more victims benefiting; the possibility of more asbestos-related diseases being covered; more funding for research; and the inclusion of the self-employed and those who are currently forced to access less generous schemes.
On research, the Government’s response, as articulated by Lord Howe in the House of Lords, has been welcome as far as it goes. We very much hope that it will bear fruit in bringing forward more, better-funded and more fully developed research proposals. However, we really cannot overlook the moral responsibility of everyone involved in the sorry history of asbestos exposure to invest now in the best quality research that we can possibly promote to tackle this horrible disease. It was pointed out earlier that our obligation is not just to sufferers who are experiencing and dying of the disease now, and not just to sufferers in the UK. Developing economies mean that exposure rates around the world will rise for many years to come. Good research programmes and proposals exist, and more will come forward. Ministers have given a welcome indication of what they intend to do to galvanise and support such proposals, but we will want to keep a close watch on the practical consequences and effects of the guarantees that have been given. Unless they turn into properly funded, meaningful research programmes, I fear that we will have heard little more than warm words.
We very much look forward to seeing the draft regulations, which the Minister has indicated will be available tomorrow. I hope that will give us the opportunity to see some of the details of how the scheme will be run, which remain to be teased out, even after our debates. We particularly wish to scrutinise the detailed operation of the scheme, because we know that the insurance industry hopes to create a vehicle that can bid to administer the scheme. Understandably, there is a certain amount of suspicion among victims’ groups about the industry, which has so wronged them over so many decades, now becoming the vehicle responsible for operating the scheme that is to give victims some level of financial satisfaction.
I have to say that the representatives of the Association of British Insurers who have discussed the Bill and the scheme with me have given me an encouraging impression of how committed they are to operating an effective
and well-run scheme that will get funds moving swiftly to victims. However, as I am sure the Minister will expect, it is not enough that we have a scheme run wholly in the interests of victims; the scheme must also be seen to be run in that way. That requires a tendering process that is entirely transparent. It requires transparency about the costs of running the scheme and who is recouping what payments for running the scheme, including details on a range of costs and fees that we are still unclear about: the legal fees, the arbitration costs, and the set-up and running costs. Those simply must not deplete resources that ought to be available to make payouts to victims. I hope that when the regulations are introduced, much more financial and operational detail will be given about the running of the scheme.
I am pleased that the Minister is working with colleagues in other Departments to sort out some difficulties that lie outwith his control but which, none the less, threaten either to derail or to have adverse impact on this scheme. He said that he was working collaboratively with colleagues—I hope he will be a little more assertive than that. We urgently need a resolution to the difficulties created for us by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ new interpretation of disclosure rules in relation to employment records. I hope, too, that he will continue in dialogue with the Ministry of Justice about the baffling correlation it makes between the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 provisions on mesothelioma and this scheme, which is, of course, designed entirely for victims who cannot access civil justice through the courts.