Miners' Compensation (Hansard, 15 June 2000)

§ 2. Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley)
If he will make a statement on the legal costs retired miners can expect to face in respect of health-related compensation claims. [124580]

§ The Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe (Mrs. Helen Liddell)
The Department of Trade and Industry considers that miners and their families should not be paying any legal costs. We have made arrangements to ensure that the costs of solicitors and the cost to each claimant are met by the Department. We have put aside £100 million to cover those fees.

§ Mr. Campbell
I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. It is a disgrace that these solicitors—these parasites—who are already getting paid are now charging those lads again. Someone in the Department should consider the legal position and stop them doing so. I thank the Labour Government for the compensation cases that are now coming to the fore. Miners are now getting paid. That started in 1998, whereas under the Tory Government they got absolutely no compensation. As chairman of the miners' group at that time, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) knows that they would not budge an inch on compensation cases. It was not until 1998, after the Labour Government came to power, that compensation was paid.

§ Mrs. Liddell
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. We have made arrangements whereby solicitors can receive fees of between £500 and £1,750 plus VAT and any small costs that they may have incurred to allow them to help claimants to fill in the forms. I ask hon. Members to ensure that the Department is informed if solicitors charge contingency fees, and we will raise the matter. Solicitors should not be doing that, and if anyone has been charged any fees they should ask for them to be annotated so as to give true evidence of why they have been charged.
On the more general point, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The first case, in 1990—the Tanner case—showed that chronic bronchitis and emphysema was an industrial injury, and that British Coal was liable. That case gave Conservative Members, who were then in government, the opportunity to act. In the following year, 1991, the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council said that coal pulmonary diseases were an industrial injury, but the 1087 Tories turned their back on it. Seven thousand miners died and their widows have put in claims for that period. That is the record of the Conservative Government.

§ Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton)
As it is more than two years since the court judgment requiring the Government to start the process for those claims, why did the DTI require Healthcall to begin recruitment of respiratory consultants as late as November of last year? Was it not because the original contract, which was not tendered for, failed to carry out appropriate medical tests on former miners? What went wrong with the Government's plan to process 2,500 full medical tests a month?

§ Mrs. Liddell
The hon. Lady should do her homework. She has asked a series of questions, but she has not bothered to read the replies. We have not changed companies. We have processed the claims as quickly as we possibly can, and £60 million has already been paid out to miners and to their widows. We are currently paying £3 million a week in compensation, and £1 million a day will soon be matched in compensation. If men were too ill to complete the test, that does not prevent claims from being completed. To suggest otherwise is to spread anxiety in the mining communities which the Conservative Government decimated during their years in power.
The accusation made by the hon. Lady in a press release issued this morning—that is what this is all about—that widows' claims are being dealt with after those of living victims is utter nonsense. From 1992 to 1997, 7,000 miners died, and their widows are now claiming compensation. My Department has paid £180 million in compensation for vibration white finger and lung disease. The Government whom the hon. Lady represented did nothing. I challenge her to come to the Dispatch Box and apologise.

§ Mrs. Browning
The press release that the Minister is waving was issued yesterday. It was issued yesterday because, having tabled five named-day questions on behalf of ex-miners from all over the country who wrote asking me to assist them by speeding up the process—the way in which the Department is handling the matter is exacerbating their problems—I received, as usual, holding answers. The Department could not give answers on a critical issue for which it is responsible.
I received the answers last night. Three were of such a party political nature that I wrote to the Cabinet Office this morning asking for an investigation of the politicisation of the DTI—[Interruption.] The health of these miners and their widows, and the processing of the claims, do not constitute a subject for party political spin from the Minister or other Labour Members.
I issued the press release because of the inaction of the Minister and her Secretary of State, who were unable to answer questions about vital matters for which they are departmentally responsible. If the Minister believes that all is well at the DTI, and that her Secretary of State—[Interruption.]

§ Madam Speaker
Order. Those on both Front Benches must realise that we are not having a debate. This is Question Time.

§ Mrs. Browning
rose—

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I must either hear brief questions and brief answers, or move on to the next question. May I hear a question to the Minister, please?

§ Mrs. Browning
If all is well, why does the Minister think the Nottingham Evening Post quoted a member of the Labour party—one of her MPs—as saying that the position was not acceptable? Other Labour MPs representing Nottinghamshire constituencies—[Interruption.]

§ Madam Speaker
Order. Will the Minister answer briefly? Otherwise I shall move on to the next question, because I have heard enough of this.

§ Mrs. Liddell
In fact, the press release issued by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) is dated 15 June rather than yesterday.
As for the hon. Lady's points about Nottinghamshire, Members throughout the House have been working with miners in their communities to ensure that the necessary documentation is processed as quickly as possible. Labour Members are holding surgeries to help miners, while Conservative Members are issuing press releases. I note that the hon. Lady did not apologise to the House for misleading it, or for the actions of the last Government.

§ Mrs. Browning
rose—

§ Madam Speaker
I hope that we are going to hear another question.

§ Mrs. Browning
On a point of order, Madam Speaker.

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I can take no points of order during Question Time. I understand that the hon. Lady wished to ask three questions. If she has a question, I will hear it.

§ Mrs. Browning
Why has the Nottingham Evening Post had to run a campaign—the word that it used—on behalf of former miners in its area to encourage the Government to speed up the processing of claims? Why should it be incumbent on local newspapers to make the Government do their duty?

§ Mrs. Liddell
Like all other coalfield newspapers, the Nottingham Evening Post is working with the mining community to process the claims as quickly as possible. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping), the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office, who is present, who spoke to the newspaper.
What the hon. Lady says would be much more credible if she were prepared to go into mining communities and answer for the inaction of the Government whom she supported, and under whom she was a Minister. Labour Members have acted to ensure that within three years we shall have settled the biggest personal injury action in the country's history. It would have taken 15 years had we not acted. Some £60 million pounds is to go into miners' pockets, but had the last Government accepted liability, the money could have been in miners' pockets now.

§ Mr. George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent, South)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and her Department 1089 on implementing the compensation scheme, in stark contrast with the record of the previous Government, but will she revisit the payments that are being offered on legal advice under the so-called fast-track system? I have constituents who are terribly affected by emphysema and lung disease as a result of their mining experience but who are being offered as little as £3,000 under the fast-track procedure. Will my right hon. Friend please revisit that important aspect of the scheme?

§ Mrs. Liddell
If a miner or his widow accepts compensation under the fast-track procedure, they can also opt to go into the medical assessment process. It is on the basis of that process that the excess damages are paid. If my hon. Friend has any specific cases that he wishes me to look at, I will be only too happy to do so. I commend him and my hon. Friends from the coalfields who are doing extra work with mining communities to try to move the claims along as quickly as possible. I know that their work is much appreciated in mining communities. It is certainly much appreciated by the Government.