HC Deb 03 May 1963 vol 676 cc1549-55
Mr. Buck

I beg to move, in page 8, line 19 to leave out from "was" to "before" in line 23 and to insert: after the end of the three-year period relating to that right of action or was not earlier than twelve months". I need not detain the House long on this matter. It is an entirely consequential Amendment dealing with the Scottish provisions of the Bill. It has the same effect, according to those learned in Scottish law, as an earlier Amendment which I moved in relation to English law. It meets a point put by the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) in Committee.

The Solicitor-General

As my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester has pointed out, this again is merely a drafting Amendment which arose from indications made in Committee by the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch). It applies to Scotland and corresponds to the Amendment made to Clause 1 (3). I commend the Amendment as it is clearly to make the machinery of the Bill correct. I think it a necessary Amendment which should be agreed to.

Mr. Buck

If I may be permitted to add to what I said earlier because I did not deal with the point at great length, I should say that this is the first opportunity we have had today of dealing with an Amendment relating to Scotland. This Amendment is to produce in Scottish law the desirable alteration put forward by the hon. Member for Bedwellty in Committee. I trust that it will have the result which it anticipates. From what the Solicitor-General has said it would appear to be the case that that is what it effects. I hope that any hon. Members opposite who have knowledge of Scottish law may be able to assure me that it is the effect which I believe it has.

Mr. Ronald Bell

Can my hon. Friend explain what effect the Amendment would have?

Mr. Buck

The effect, as my hon. Friend may recall, is to amend the provision in the same way as in the English part of the Bill by deleting the provision by which, if a person got to know these matters so near to the end of the limitation period, it would not be practicable for him to bring an action. It was felt by the hon. Member for Bedwellty that this would introduce an element of uncertainty which was undesirable. It was adumbrated in Committee by the hon. Member and accepted on both sides that certainty should be introduced.

Now we have the new formula that either it was after the end of the three-year period relating to that course of action, or not earlier than twelve months before the end of that period. This introduces the element of certainty which was thought necessary and desirable and which I trust will be acceptable to the House.

Mr. Ronald Bell

I thank my hon. Friend for that explanation. I listened carefully and I do not think I understood a word of it because it relates to the law of Scotland, but I am at least assured that my hon. Friend has given due consideration to it. I hope he may have in mind when this Bill goes to another place that the whole of the transitional provisions of the Bill require a great deal of attention because they are extremely obscure to those who have not read them carefully and they are very difficult to understand.

Amendment agreed to.

Order for Third Reading read.

[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]

Motion made and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

2.25 p.m.

Mr. Buck

Perhaps I may be allowed to apologise for the way in which I dealt with the Amendment relating to Scottish law. I was waiting for the presence of a right hon. Gentleman in the House to assist me on a technical part of the matter.

We have spent a great deal of time today on this Bill. I welcome that fact, but I do not intend to delay the House further with a long Third Reading speech. The reason that most of us are in this House is that we want to do the best we can in the way we think appropriate to see that there is a just society and the rule of law and that our law makes for justice between citizens. From time to time—albeit rarely—a deficiency in our system is revealed. Such a deficiency in our system was revealed relative to the limitation of action. This was brought into perspective by the case, which has been referred to many times, of Cartledge and Jopling. In that case several plaintiffs had been, in the words of The Times report of the House of Lords decision, "regretfully denied justice". When anyone in this House hears of anyone being denied justice this House is wont to act as speedily as it can.

I hope the House will forgive me for having some minor personal satisfaction in the fact that the day after the report of the case of Cartledge and Jopling appeared in The Times under the heading "Denial of Justice", this Bill was published. On this occasion I do not think the House can be accused of acting in a dilatory fashion relative to an injustice. The Bill seeks to remedy the injustice revealed by the Cartledge and Jopling case by seeing that a person who sustains an injury or contracts a disease which thereafter remains dormant or quiescent shall not have the time running against him to prevent him being able to bring an action.

The Bill covers two classes of case. The first is the case involving pneumoconiosis and other like diseases affecting the lungs. It is a matter of satisfaction to me that the Bill should be of assistance to the mining community and those who from time to time work in a polluted atmosphere. If I may be permitted a short personal digression, I should say that in the last war my father, through the logic for which the Army is famous, being an East Anglian, was sent to France to become adjutant of the Second Battalion of the Monmouthshire Regiment. This brought him into close contact with members of the mining community. I have been brought up in an atmosphere in which there is great admiration for that community and for that reason I find satisfaction in the fact that we can help that community by this Bill.

A second class of case is concerned with persons who have the misfortune to sustain a slight injury, perhaps a small knock by being run down by a car, and think nothing of it until, three years and one day later, it is found that a most serious injury or disease has occurred through the apparently trivial accident. That injury might involve an intercranial tumour. For this reason the Bill is in the interests of all my constituents and to the community generally. I am most grateful to the House for the way in which I have been able to see the Bill through Second Reading, Committee, Report, and—in a short time, I hope—Third Reading. I also express appreciation to all hon.Members on both sides of the House who have given me very considerable assistance and to all who have assisted me in the drafting of this not so easy Measure.

2.30 p.m.

Mr. Finch

I welcome the Bill particularly as it implements the recommendations in the Report of the Edmund Davies Committee on the question of the limitation on actions for personal injury. There has been a flaw in the Statute of Limitations which has had the effect of depriving injured workmen or their dependants of statutory common law rights. After the Report of the Edmund Davies Committee I should have thought the Government would have taken on the responsibility for introducing this Measure. But the task has been left to the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) who has carried it out with great ability. I should like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his success.

We shall give this excellent Measure our support and the hon. Member for Colchester will have the satisfaction of knowing that he is responsible for a piece of legislation designed to remove an injustice which has been suffered by injured men and their dependants because, through no fault of their own, a claim for damages in respect of injury or disease has been out of time. We appreciate the necessity to have some time limit within which an action must be commenced. Since 1954 that limit has been three years, and men suffering from pneumoconiosis and similar diseases might not have bean aware that they had contracted the disease. By the time they found out it was too late to make a claim for damages.

We were reminded by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) that the provisions in this Measure do not relate only to the mining industry. There have been cases of men suffering injury from handling radio active material and being unaware for a considerable time that they were contaminated. Hon Members will agree that it is unfair that a man suffering from a disease should be robbed of the opportunity to claim his rights under common law. I am sure that all hon. Members will give this Bill a unanimous Third Reading because we do not like to feel that an injustice is being committed. There are other matters to which I should have liked to have referred. But I think I have said enough to warrant the unanimous support of this Bill by hon. Members.

2.35 p.m.

The Solicitor-General

Hon. Members, like other human beings, believe that the piece of business in which they are interested is of the greatest importance. But I do not think that any hon. Member would be so ungenerous as to fail to confirm what has been said by the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch). This is an important Measure and we are extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) for selecting this Bill to introduce after his success in the Ballot and for the skill and ability with which he has conducted it through the various stages. My hon. Friend has performed a most worth-while task, and I strongly commend the Bill to the House.

2.36 p.m.

Dr. Donald Johnson (Carlisle)

I wish to join in the tribute paid to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck). For a comparatively new Member, my hon. Friend has performed his task in a masterly manner. It is true that the provisions in this Bill do not relate only to people suffering from pneumoconiosis. A number of medical conditions resulting from injury and accidents are also involved, will be known by those interested in dealing with grievance cases.

I should like to think that this House was always as prompt as the hon. Member for Colchester represented it to be. On this occasion the House did act promptly. For a number of years there has been agitation over cases such as are dealt with by this Bill and representations have been made by the Society for Individual Freedom, which has done sterling work. The case of Mr. Bryant, a meter reader, was discussed in this House. Mr. Bryant was found to be suffering from mercury poisoning resulting from his contact with electricity meters. Oddly enough, evidence thought to be in his favour eventually lost the case for Mr. Bryant because it was established that his condition had started three years sooner than was thought to be the case. On technical grounds, therefore, he lost his case.

A constituent of mine, a railway worker was injured while working in the shunting yards and after seven or eight years his injury proved fatal. All that his widow received was a donation of £20 or £30 from a benevolent fund. One must comment that the way in which nationalised boards have seen fit in the past to plead the Statute of Limitations in relation to such cases is appalling.

This Bill will have the effect of regularising the matter and providing equity in cases, of which there is a wide range, where delay is involved in respect of a medical diagnosis. I should like to take the opportunity to thank my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General for the manner in which he received the Bill.

2.39 p.m.

Mr. J. Wells

I am not a lawyer, a doctor or a trade unionist. Speakers representing those three professions have dominated our discussions. But it is right that such learned and experienced gentlemen should debate a matter about which they know a great deal. In these days of scientific and technological processes and progress many new items are being handled by workers. In my constituency, and in areas similar to the consistency of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck), fruit growing processes are carried out which involve the use of chemical sprays. There are many possibilities of new diseases and disabilities open not only to agricultural workers who handle these substances but to the farmer and his family and their neighbours. I believe that in the countryside today there is grave danger of new complaints of this kind and of secondary effects of half-understood chemical processes.

I therefore welcome wholeheartedly the Measure, which I believe will be of far wider benefit in the community than the narrow sphere of mining which has been suggested. I am glad that my hon. and learned Friend shakes his head in agreement, for I take it from this that he, too, believes that it will be a Measure of wider importance. I welcome it wholeheartedly.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.