Emphysema (Compensation) (Hansard, 20 October 1982)

§ Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse (Pontefract and Castleford)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for compensation to persons suffering from emphysema by making emphysema an industrial disease for the purpose of the Industrial Injuries Acts. The proposed Bill will entitle mineworkers who suffer from emphysema to compensation in accordance with the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965. I am grateful to the large number of Members who are present—especially on the Opposition Benches.

I appreciate that people working in other industries such as textiles and the rag trade suffer from emphysema. Unfortunately, there have been no in-depth emphysema studies in those industries, as far as I am aware. However, there have been in-depth studies in the mining industry, and that is why I ask for leave to bring in the Bill. I should be foolish to expect hon. Members who have never been in a coal mine to feel the same sense of outrage that I feel. Those hon. Members will want facts and the results of medical research to help them decide whether to support the Bill.

I have only 10 minutes, and it is impossible for me to refer to all the studies and surveys that have taken place in the past few years. I have had the opportunity to study eight learned papers, and I shall summarise two of them. If the House is minded to allow time for the Bill—even at this late stage in the Session—all that information will be available. I hope to influence the House to do just that. The first official study is that of 1966. There has been no official study since that date. It was by Himsworth, H. et al., entitled "Chronic Bronchitis and Occupation" published in the British Medical Journal on 8 January 1966. The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance had requested the Medical Research Council to examine the role of occupation aetiology of chronic bronchitis in the coal mining industry. The report placed great emphasis on smoking. It referred to regional variations, and highlighted the fact that South Wales and the West Riding of Yorkshire have the highest percentage of incapacity from chest diseases other than pneumoconiosis. It said that it would not be possible, on the basis of any known form of clinical examination, to measure the extent to which the disease in any individual was due to his occupation. The report further stated that it was important that research designed to increase our understanding of the many factors involved in the causes of the disease should continue. That research has continued, and it is as a result of it that I ask for leave to introduce the Bill today.

Right hon. and hon. Members from the Home Counties may find popping into their minds the question "Is this to do with the type of coal mined in South Wales?" They will know that that is an anthracite area with a major dust hazard. Hon. Members may wonder whether there is a correlation between severe respiratory diseases like emphysema and pneumoconiosis, which is recognised as a killer by the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965. I have done my research, and I can say that there is a correlation.

Miners always take the chance to be X-rayed. They would be foolish not to do so. It can be shown that in the age group 45 to 54 years a man's chance of getting pneumoconiosis is 15 times greater in South Wales than 370 it is in Scotland. That statistical precision does not exist for emphysema, but there are indications that show a direct correlation to the pneumoconiosis tables. As the House recognised pneumoconiosis as a serious disease, it should recognise emphysema—both in association with pneumoconiosis but also on its own—as a disease for which compensation should be paid when found on its own and not in association with pneumoconiosis. Emphysema is a disease which stands alone as a killer. It does not need association with a dangerous disease

Studies have continued since 1966, but no one has argued that emphysema among miners is not an occupational disease. On the contrary, all the studies confirm a greater incidence of emphysema in mineworkers than in non-mineworkers. We should be prepared to pay for diseased lungs as happens in the United States of America, Australia and Canada. Miners in those countries have only to prove the existence of a chest disease to qualify for compensation. That should apply in this country.

The Bill has another function. It would restructure the present pneumoconiosis panel and refine the investigation techniques. It is not sufficient to process X-rays before a panel of part-timers who have no special expertise in chest diseases. Emphysema sufferers need more than X-rays. They need more notice to be taken of their functional disability. At present, well-paid part-time doctors often do no more than could be done by radiographers. The panel should take on lung-function testing and exercise tolerance and not simply examine X-rays. We should take seriously those illnesses, and have specialist panels rather than part-time general practitioners.

There has been a temptation over the years to say "Wait a bit, let us have more studies, let us be perfectionists." I have read the studies and have had discussions with members of the medical profession. It is now agreed generally that there is no way in which emphysema can be proved conclusively to exist on a living body, but chrome cases can be recognised by specialists if the testing is thorough. I want specialists who will give men with physical symptons the benefit of the doubt.

While I was finalising my case, I received a copy of The Lancet dated 11 September 1982. It contained an article that confirmed all that I had come to believe. The summary states: A post-mortem survey of emphysema in coalworkers and non-coalworkers was carried out in men aged 50–70 years dying of ischaemic heart disease (IHD). It was determined that in such men selection for necropsy was similar in coalworkers and non-coalworkers. All lungs were examined in a standard way and the amounts of centrilobular and panacinar emphysema were scored on numerical scales. Emphysema in men dying of IHD was significantly more frequent in coalworkers than in non-coalworkers even after age and smoking habits were accounted for by stratification. In the coalworkers, the severity of emphysema was related to the amount of dust in simple foci in the lungs. Because both groups were selected similarly from their parent populations the relative frequency of emphysema found in this study reflects if at in the whole populations of coalworkers and non-coalworkers in the study area and confirms an excess of emphysema in coalworkers. This excess is likely to be due to occupational factors. That is as much evidence as we are likely to get.

The report brings together all the findings of research since 1966. Of course, those findings come from dead bodies. I wish the workers to be compensated before death, and if there is still doubt in the minds of some members of the medical profession the victims should be given the benefit of the doubt. If my Bill were accepted 371 by the Government, the cost to the nation would be slightly less that £2,250,000. That is very little to pay for men whose working life is over. At its conference, the Conservative Party expressed concern and compassion about illness and the National Health Service. This afternoon, the Government can show that those were not just words by allowing time for the Bill to receive a Second Reading before the end of the Session.