HL Deb 23 April 1975 vol 359 cc989-1012

7.52 p.m.

Lord HALE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is the estimated cost to the national Exchequer of the grant to the National Coal Board for sufferers from pneumoconiosis and when similar provision is to be made for sufferers from other industrial lung diseases including byssinosis and asbestosis. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in deference to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, I will endeavour to open this debate in a cool, calculated, inhuman and unemotional manner. It is unbecoming to anyone with a taste for poetry and, indeed, it is unbecoming and difficult for anyone who really believes that human suffering is a matter about which one can justifiably be a little emotional.

When I first entered Parliament, many years ago, there came to my notice the case of a lad of 15 who was injured in the mines. He was not a member of the union. The greatest advocate of the day had undertaken to conduct that case for nothing, subject to a single condition which he had to make; namely, that he was already committed to a murder defence which could clash with it, in which event he was committed to defending the man for murder—as well he should. He was Norman Birkett—not a man free from emotion, but one of wide and generous emotions and a very great advocate. I will not attempt to introduce emotion into this debate. My boy of 15 had been employed, really, as a pit pony. He was lowering heavy tubs down the mine, and when they became too heavy for him he spread himself against a prop and bruised his shoulder. His doctor, who came here with me, said, "I advised him that he had bruised his shoulder, that it would be better in a day or two and that he was not to worry; but four days later he came back and I had to say to him that he had got osteomyelitis: that he must go at once for an emergency operation". So the lad of 15 did not give notice, and we lost the case on that. This was under the old Workmen's Compensation Act.

So far as industrial diseases are concerned, there were many. Fortunately, modern conditions have eliminated some. There was the dreadful disease in the mines of miner's nystagmus which was oscillation of the eyeballs. It had the signal merit of bringing Nye Bevan from below ground to become Minister of Housing and of Health in Labour Governments. Fortunately, better conditions underground now prevail. In the cotton industry spinner's cancer was very prevalent at one time—cancer of the scrotum which was caused by oil. I think that this has now completely disappeared. The real disease of Oldham was rickets, caused by food deficiency. These are emotional matters.

For many years it was my fate, or good fortune, to find myself the solicitor of two Midland mining unions. Therefore, I had to handle the whole wretched business of the treatment of industrial disease, which was cruel to the point of absolute persecution and which, unhappily, left many men suffering from a very real persecution complex. This helped to make their shortened life more unhappy. These are better days. All Governments have a very much improved record in this matter, and much has been done. Therefore, let me say that I have had the good fortune to see that one of the very greatest experts on diseases of the lung has put his name down to speak in this debate. I know that he has come here at some inconvenience. I know also that he would like to ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House whether he can make his speech as soon as possible.

There are three main lung diseases which are now scheduled. There is the coal miner's disease of pneumoconiosis —mineral dust in the lungs which can be detected on postmortem. If one ever has to see a miner's lung after his death, it shows a concentration of mineral irritant which it is emotional to see. Then there is the disease of byssinosis, of which I had great experience when I went to Oldham. That is a vegetable dust which is not easy to see on postmortem; diagnosis is more difficult. The third disease is asbestosis which I have included because, although I know nothing about it, clearly it has relevance. Indeed, I suspect that this is the most serious of all the dust diseases. I had the good fortune to have the support for many years not only of one of the great advocates of the House of Commons, but also of a lady who had personal experience of asbestosis cases. Therefore, I will not expose further my ignorance about that disease.

Times have improved and health methods have improved. In this debate I propose to lean almost backwards in defence of the Government, because I feel that they have a wonderful record in this brief period of difficulty in the reforms they have made in relation to industrial disease. The figures are contained in the Coal Bill which will be the subject of discussion in this House in a day or two. It is curious that they were so coy about explaining it at one stage. There has never been any secret about it. They have said that for the old cases of coal miner's pneumoconiosis, for the old cases of lung disease in the coal mining industry, they will pay a sum of £55 million in this year, with a maximum of £100 million to provide substantial compensation for the many sufferers in the industry. They have done this by agreement with the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers, and they have arranged that this shall be administered entirely by a representative committee formed of those bodies. This has been welcomed, and I welcome it, as one of the very great and generous acts which light up our social legislation. Already, of course, the miners are very properly saying that this kind of case is missed out, but that will no doubt be adjusted. There are always anomalies. It is a great measure, and they are entitled to be most heartily congratulated upon it; no one is more pleased than I am.

They have done more, however, because one of the peculiarities of byssinosis was that it was scheduled much later than the other two after a bitter and contested fight under very limited conditions, so that to qualify a man had to have, first, a high degree of acknowledged disablement; second, to be able to show 20 years of employment in the processes of making raw cotton up to the spinning section—the card room. They are hard conditions, and, of course, while coal dust is a mineral and shows readily on the X-ray, in those days certainly— and it may be so today but I am not sure—an X-ray was of no use in the diagosis of the disease.

Some years ago the period of 20 years was reduced to 10. Under this Government, since they were elected early in 1973 they have increased the hardship allowance to all sufferers. These increases were not spectacular, but there were two separate increases. They have reduced the period of qualification to five years in the spinning process exposed to dust. They have extended quite substantially the areas in the cotton spinning industry which enable a man to qualify. They have probably increased the number of claimants—never a very large figure, about 25 per cent. The actual figure of miners' pneumoconiosis claims was about 39,000 and for byssinosis the figure had gone up from about 3,000 to over 4,000, partly as a result of these measures.

So this Government have a right to be thanked and they might well say, "Look here, don't you come along and keep asking for more". The cotton industry is not an Oliver Twist. These people arc suffering from precisely the same type of disability and the Government have a right to say, "It is a nationalised industry; we believe in nationalisation, we believe we should give a special first trial to nationalisation". Indeed, they have a complete justification for paying this out of the national Exchequer, as clearly it could not be provided out of the National Insurance Fund, and if the Coal Board itself was to embark on such a scheme, the Government would anyhow have to repay the amount.

But so far as I remember, no one criticised it in the Commons debate. It was recognised that this was a major step forward. The textile workers say, "We are very grateful. We do not want to criticise, but why are we left out? We suffer just as much, we are on much lower wages and our problems are the same." It was at this stage that—and, again, I am in the same difficulty in not being able to quote from a Member of Parliament—the honourable Member for Oldham East raised an adjournment debate on the 14th March and I had a Question on the Order Paper on the subject on the following Monday. A reply was given by the Minister which I cannot quote because it was not an official Statement in the Commons, and my noble friend Lord Jacques, who is always the sole of courtesy and of help was given—I shall not use the word "brief"—but he was given it unfairly.

Your Lordships know that the noble Lord covers a vast variety of subjects and he must rely to some extent on the information provided by the Department, but I do not think on that day he was well served. He said almost exactly what was said in the Commons, but he said it better. I did not even think that in the Commons the real strength of the defence was put forward. What they said was this: first, the coalmining scheme is a special scheme because the miner is giving us, as part of the terms, his right to compensation for damages for tort. Damages for tort, if awarded, can be very big. The answer to that is that, so far as I know, they never have been awarded. It would be absolutely impossible under the old laws to bring a successful action for tort. Heaven knows! enough miners' solicitors have considered it, and I think there was one odd case with regard to asbestosis, but that is a different matter and, of course, there is no case in regard to byssinosis. One case was brought in the coal industry on legal advice and was settled out of court for a purely derisory figure. Still less could one do that with byssinosis, with a qualification of 20 years employment for some, 10 years for others and five years for others.

At the moment the Pearson Royal Commission is considering all aspects of actions for tort and we ought to wait until they have reported. We cannot do it piecemeal. This will not do: if you can do it for 39,000, you can do it for 3,000, without waiting. But here I acknowledge, and I want to say frankly to the noble Lord who is to reply, that I had underestimated him in deriding the possibility of this very gifted Committee being able to find any solution to this intractable problem. The strength of fairly recent legislation imposes certain additional standards of care on the industry which could in vague theory— and I honestly do not think in practice —provide an action for breach of statutory duty. No doubt the Pearson Committee will very ably and properly consider this, and it is certainly not for me to comment further.

That is the position. Then it was said that in the coal industry people have had to change their place of employment and most of the old coalmines had been closed down. But in the cotton industry the mills have been closing down, as we heard in the last debate, year after year. The same difficulties have arisen of amalgamations, concentrations, new processes being introduced, and so on. The same conditions apply. It was said that this disease closely resembles a combination of chronic bronchitis combined with asthma, that medical diagnosis can be uncertain and that bronchitis is prevalent in coal mining areas—much more prevalent in Oldham, where 80 per cent. of the houses should have been condemned, according to the Medical Officer of Health. An immense proportion of them were built before 1870; back-to-back houses, thousands without even a lavatory and, of course, bronchitis is endemic. The tragedy of the disease is that we have many able doctors in Oldham, but it is only natural that, when a man goes to a doctor and does not mention that he has been working for 20 years in the cotton mill, they write "bronchitis" on a bit of paper because chronic bronchitis is so very close to it.

Before I conclude, I must pay tribute —and I am quite sure that the noble Lord, Lord Platt, will wish me to do so—to the researches into this disease by Professor Schilling, who took the old title of Monday Fever, I suspect, but at any rate was able to establish a method of diagnosis of the disease which was very satisfactory. He found that what was properly called Monday Fever did really show the Monday symptoms, because the man, who came out of the mill exposed to dust and had a couple of days out on the moors or in the country or watching the locals being defeated and went back on Monday, at once faced excessive dyspnoea, the excessive breathing which can be seen at once. The symptom of the disease they used to say was, "I feel as if I got an iron band round my chest". I am afraid it is not a curable disease. There may be intermissions, there may be delays, there may be postponement of death, but it is a slow, depressing death. I ask the Government to look at the matter again in all honesty, with all the tributes I have paid, and say, "If you tell us"—and I do tell them—"that even in the cotton textile industry employers and trade unions will form a committee and will administer it," I hope they will say: "We owe it to them; you are right, we will make this provision." I ask the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, whom I know is sympathetic, to do his best to give a reassuring answer.

8.12 p.m.

Lord PLATT

My Lords, the subject of industrial diseases of the lungs is essentially a medical subject and I thought that one of the medical Members of this House, who might be myself, should perhaps put down his name to say a few words about it. I think I can be very brief, because the medical facts of pneumoconiosis and other industrial lung diseases are not at present in dispute. There are considerable difficulties of diagnosis in some cases which concern doctors and particularly the experts on the pneumoconiosis panel. All those difficulties have not been solved. I would be the last to pretend that the problem is an easy one, but this is not in dispute tonight.

The Report of the Industrial Diseases Sub-Committee of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council on the question of pneumoconiosis and byssinosis which was published in 1973 (Cmnd. 5443), sets out very well for us the medical problems of the diseases and deals effectively with questions of diagnosis, and so far as they can be dealt with, of attributability, of assessment of the degree of disability and of the difficult and awkward but, nevertheless, very important questions of disablement which is only partly due to occupations, but is also partly due to other respiratory disease notably bronchitis and emphysema, of which the major cause is pollution of the atmosphere, including the pollution of the inhaling of cigarette smoke. The main industrial chest diseases are, as the noble Lord, Lord Hale, has said, miners' pneumoconiosis. This is, perhaps, the most variable of them in the sense that in its simpler and less serious form it causes almost no disability, or indeed in some cases actually no disability at all.

The worst disease I encountered when I was a young medical person—at that time I was in Sheffield—was silicosis due to metal grinding on sandstone wheels. Sheffield grinders considered themselves old men at the age of 35 and very few survived over the age of 40. This was partly because the silicosis led to tuberculosis. They would spit into the trough in which the wheel revolved, and in this way tuberculosis was very readily spread. The main disorders causing silicosis are now so protected by various means— masking, and so on—that fortunately it is very much less important from a numerical point of view than it used to be in those days.

Asbestosis may be the most serious of all, because it is the disease which can lead to cancer of the lung and also the pleura. Then there is byssinosis, which is perhaps the main topic, but by no means the only one, in this evening's Question, and affects workers in raw and waste cotton. There is also farmer's lung, which is also a prescribed respiratory disease of occupation. The medical panels of experts to which I have referred arc extremely important not only in seeing that the right people get the right diagnosis and are available for what compensation exists, but also in seeing that the wrong people do not claim industrial respiratory disease where no such disease exists.

Having said this, I do not think I need go any further into the medical aspect because, as I have said, there is really no disagreement about it. Having established that a worker is a sufferer from one of these diseases, the question as to whether there are 39,000 sufferers or 3,000 sufferers is irrelevant. The question really is whether persons who are equally disabled through their work, whatever it may be, are treated in different ways according to whether they happen to be working in the mining industry or in the cotton industry—to take two examples with which we are mainly concerned tonight—and, in the final count, to what extent their occupations contributed to their eventual death. These are difficult medical problems, but the question being asked tonight is whether they should not all be given the same treatment.

Being a simple-minded person not used to political decisions, there seems to me no particular reason why they should not all be given equal treatment, assuming that the disability in one case is the same as that in another. This is not a problem for me, and I shall be interested to know what the noble Lord is going to say in reply. I hope I can stay, although, as the noble Lord, Lord Hale, said, I may not be able to stay the whole time. I sincerely hope that a solution can be found for this so that justice will not only be done, but will be seen to be done between these various occupations. I hope that the solution will not include the necessity to prove liability in Common Law; because I think this is something which is almost impossible to prove. From what the noble Lord, Lord Hale, was saying, I think he fully agrees with that. To try to do so would only lead to interminable argument and very great expense.

8.21 p.m.

Lord DAVIES of LEEK

My Lords, owing to the late hour I do not want to keep the House for too long. Apart from that, I have a little duty outside. But before I get to the few points that I want to make, I must pay a tribute to Sir Keith Joseph, because when he set up the Department of Health and Social Security a Report was published on the investigation of pneumoconiosis and byssinosis. This Report resulted in the Blue Book, which is a Report on pneumoconiosis and byssinosis by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council in accordance with Section 62 of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965.

My Lords, having been a Minister myself, I know that both sides of the House have made great progress since the 1945 period in attending to these diseases of the lungs. My noble friend Lord Hale mentioned the interesting question of the amount of money spent on this. As a result of an examination made by a celebrated doctor into industrial injuries, I would point out that for every 100,000 shifts worked in British pits we have the lowest incidence of injury in the world. In that regard much tribute should go to the National Coal Board for the establishment of the safety officers.

That brings me, at the end of one minute, to the 1974 Act and to a reference on safety. I do not want to enter into the pros and cons of the question. That excellent doctor, Dr. Murray, was advising the TUC, but at present there is a hiatus or a vacuum so far as medical advice to the TUC is concerned. I should like to see more doctors at the elbow of the Trades Union Congress to give first class advice, because as from the first of this month, the Safety at Work Act is operative. I have an interest in that Act. I hope I shall not be thought to be blowing my own trumpet, but the biggest Private Bill ever presented to a British Parliament was presented by myself, and it was based on the Gowers Report. I hacked out that Bill myself, and it was the longest Private Member's Bill. It reached the stage of a Committee upstairs when we were thrown into a General Election. Out of that Bill stemmed many of the Bills on safety in offices and so on, including the one which became the Safety at Work Act.

Under this Act I should like to see safety committees set up in all branches of industry, to back up the matter of lung diseases. I should like to see safety committees set up in industries such as mining, cotton, and in asbestos. When I was a Minister asbestos was coming to the fore. Noble Lords will have to take the graph from me; the accurate figures are all here in the Blue Book if noble Lords wish to check my statistics. Before I mention any statistics, perhaps I had better give the trend. The trend shows a drop-down in pneumoconiosis. That will be found on page 14 of the Blue Book. We see that from 1953 to 1957 22,058 men in coal mining were diagnosed as suffering from pneumoconiosis, whereas for the period 1968 to 1972 the figure was 3,420. But one must take into account the fact that by December 1972 the numbers working in the pits had fallen by about one-third. The numbers employed in the pottery industry were also reduced, and in that industry, too, there was a reduction in the incidence of pneumoconiosis.

Gradually we are beginning to conquer the causes of the disease, or so I hope. Someone better informed than myself would not dream of entering into the realms of medicine, but the noble Lord, Lord Platt, who has had a distinguished career in medicine pointed out something that I was taught in Euston, when I went to the Pneumoconiosis Centre, and when I went to Cardiff. When I took slides of pneumoconionic lungs to China and Manchuria to show to the people in the Chinese mining industry, they tried to teach me how to read an X-ray, but it is very difficult to judge the amount of dust in the lungs.

Lord HALE

My Lords, if the noble Lord would allow me—

Lord DAVIES of LEEK

My Lords, I would be glad to, but I do not want to be too long.

Lord HALE

My Lords, in fairness to the last Government, they produced a Report on health in the cotton industry. It was a very fine Report and it contained the details of research machinery, and so on. But it is costly to put into force.

Lord DAVIES of LEEK

Of course it is. I paid tribute to the other Government, because byssinosis comes into this Report. I see that the five minutes that I promised myself are nearly up. Under the aegis of the Safety at Work Act which has been law since 1st April we should set up more safety committees. I am glad that the old-fashioned idea about pneumoconiosis is disappearing, but it took years to do it. It is referred to in the Blue Book. In 1967, I was able to change it a little, and add emphysema if a man at 50 had pneumoconiosis. I do not want to go into technical points about this, but in South Wales we fought for years on this issue of pneumoconiosis plus emphysema and at last that is taken into account. Progress has been made.

My Lords, progress has been made because noble Lords and Members of the other place who have come from industries such as cotton, pottery, coal, the asbestos producing areas, or ships—the "go-downs" where asbestos is loaded— have kept alive an interest in this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Hale, is to be congratulated upon that aspect. The attitude is different from that of the late Catherine Booth, God bless her! who wrote in War Cry in 1881: Oh, how I see the emptiness and vanity of everything. Compared with the salvation of the soul, what does it matter if a man dies in the workhouse? What does it matter if he dies on the doorstep covered with wounds, like Lazarus? What does it matter if his soul is saved? If noble Lords want to check that quotation, they can find it in a number of War Cry, 7th July, 1881.

Thank God that heavenly approach to the tattered blood and muscle of the workers in various industries has disappeared! It has disappeared through the gradual education of the other place and of this House. Lord Harcourt himself, in 1812, under this noble roof said: The children of the public schools in Britain are 5 inches taller than the children of the slum schools in Britain. Through our Beveridge Report we attacked the giants of ignorance, disease, squalor and idleness. We are making a new generation of people, and because of the watchfulness of men like the noble Lord, Lord Platt, and the noble Lord, Lord Hale, improvements in overcoming diseases like pneumoconiosis, byssinosis and asbestosis can still be expected.

8.30 p.m.

Baroness V1CKERS

My Lords, I am very glad to be able to join in this debate and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hale, for putting down this Unstarred Question today. As I understand the noble Lord, Lord Platt, has to go very soon, may I thank him for his wisdom and for all the work he has done in the past years for people suffering from these various diseases. I am interested in asbestosis, and I have been for a number of years, the reason being that I come from Plymouth, which has a large dockyard, and we had a considerable number of people suffering from the disease.

I was very pleased when the Asbestosis Regulations of 1969 were introduced, because if they were used sufficiently we would not have half the trouble. For example, there should be proper exhaust ventilation. In a great many places where people work there is no proper ventilation, protective equipment, cleanliness of premises and plant and, very important, accommodation for cleaning the protective equipment. It makes a lot of difference if it can be kept as well as it should be. The final point is that no young people under 18 are allowed to go to work in such places. I suggest that protection is the best means of controlling a disease. I was interested when the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Admiralty were approached to make a survey among their workers. I do not have the details, but perhaps it is too soon. I hope that they will continue on work which will be an asset to anybody doing research.

Unlike the textile industry which we discussed earlier, this is a modern industry, because it dates only from 1870. We get very different types of the rock from which the asbestos is made, some from Canada, some from Russia—I believe about 4 million tons—and some from Rhodesia. I think the worst type, the one that creates the most physical difficulties, is that which comes from South Africa and is known as the blue crocidalite. In the 1950s, it was known that to inhale asbestos dust could lead to pulmonary thrombosis and carcinoma of the lung. One of the difficulties about asbestosis is that a person can go on working, and show it only 20 to 40 years later. The dust counts have been kept for some time at the Devonport Dockyard and also at Turner Brothers factory in Rochdale. They contributed in 1968 to some surveys. I should like to emphasise that if only all the 1969 Regulations were adhered to conditions would be very much better. The workers can be affected by several different types—chrysolite, amorite, and two others which are not much used at the present time.

One can get an idea when people are suffering from asbestosis, because they very often get clubbing of the fingers, persistent rales, radiological changes and reduced transfer factor. Dockyard workers exposed to asbestos have had pleural abnormalities of 28 per cent. in men continuously exposed, and only 1.9 per cent. in those little exposed. Attention should be drawn to the fact that it is extremely dangerous and very unwise to smoke if you are having anything to do with asbestos, because it seems to have a double irritation for the lungs; first the dust and then the smoke seem to make people very ill. There is more research needed here.

It affects not just the people in dockyards and shipping. Other people affected are laggers, sprayers, mattress makers, car brakelining workers, weavers, slab and pipe makers, and carding and spinning workers. In quite a number of industries they will be able to use fibre glass in future and this will be an asset, especially if precautions are taken to see that no new disease is caused by the use of fibre glass. In the Guardian in November 1971 there was an article which drew attention to the total ban on spraying asbestos in New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia, but I regret to say that it is still widely used in Britain. It is thought that even the dust from the linings of car brakes can be dangerous. The Admiralty has recently stopped spraying limpet asbestos and it is now deleted from the Royal Navy specifications, and is being replaced by mineral fibre marine board with no asbestos at all. But it will still be necessary to protect people who are breaking up ships, where the different boilers, pipes and so on are still lagged, and in some ships there are a considerable number.

To give an example of somebody suffering from asbestosis, in 1970 a Mr. Smith, not a dockyard worker, was awarded £86,000 with six other men. He had very bad damage to his body. He said that his fingers and ankles swelled. He could not control his hands, he dropped things he was carrying, he coughed a lot in the morning, sometimes became dizzy, and suffered loss of weight. He was awarded £16,000. He was only 46 but he looked very much older. He had quite a long time to live with this trouble, because unless you have carcinoma, which invariably kills fairly quickly, you live for a long time with this type of dust in your body but having all these unpleasant effects.

Since 1931, Parliament has recognised asbestosis as an industrial disease, and although a very long time has elapsed people still die from it. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, said, few people take this disease seriously enough. I should like to quote from a factory inspector now retired. I wish to pay respect to her because although she is now working in prisons she did everything possible in factory work. Perhaps I should mention that during the war I was welfare officer for the Ministry of Supply for a period in Royal Ordnance factories, so I met many of these inspectors, and sometimes caused a little trouble, I regret to say, unintentionally. She said: The tendency is not to prosecute unless sure to win, but if some of the senior inspectorate thought something was going wrong they had hysterics ". She went on to say that if this is the attitude, no wonder it takes so long to put matters right.

I realise that factory inspectors are very busy people. However, reading an account by two jouralists named Peter Gilman and Anthony Wolf, who investigated this danger from asbestos, they also quote from the Chief Inspector in 1970: The Inspectorate never aimed at and has never achieved rigorous enforcement of the Act, such as a Teutonic country might achieve. In the Annual Report it said: The inspector is fully aware that there is a problem, the management's, the workers', as well as his own. The management has to run a successful business in a competitive world and must constantly experiment with new processes and materials. I naturally agree with that, but if only more precautions were taken we might eliminate a great deal of disease today.

I should like to pay tribute, too, to a certain Commander Harris of the Devonport Dockyard. He has been working very hard on this heavy dust and visiting dusty places. Anybody who now goes on the ships or works in places where there is dust is dressed like a spaceman with a complete suit from head to toe and trailing airlines. Others, not in such danger, wear rubber or nylon overalls and respirators. As Lord Davies said, regrettably people continue to die. It was 64 in 1955, and has gone up to 107 in 1970, which is the latest figure I could get. So I think that we are fortunate to have this debate today, because it shows that there is a need for action. This Cmnd. Paper No. 5443 should be studied very carefully.

At an engineers' conference in 1971, someone was asked whether it was possible to say that any concentration of asbestos fibres in the air was safe. The reply was, "I certainly cannot get any of our medical advisers to make that statement. I wish I could." There has been more study over the last 10 years, but it has also been proved that there are small, perhaps minute, amounts of asbestos fibres in the lungs of a great many city dwellers, particularly I gather, in London and Glasgow. Regrettably, too, cases of asbestosis are still rising. In 1965, there were 82 of a certain kind, and in 1970 there were 153; in 1965, there were 64 deaths, and in 1970 there were 107. It is unfortunate that with all our medical knowledge these numbers should be going up. To finish I should like to quote Sir Thomas Legge, who wrote: Unless and until the employer has done everything, the workman can do next to nothing to protect himself. I hope that this debate, short though it is—and for a moment I thought that I was back in the House of Commons, because all the speakers seem to be ex-Members—will prove helpful. If we can use more fibre glass, and do away with spraying, as they have done in certain towns in America, and see that the regulations are carried out, then we have a chance in the next few years of really improving the health of these workers.

8.42 p.m.

Lord BROCKWAY

My Lords, my intervention will be only a postscript to this debate. I want to acknowledge that part of my reason for taking part in the debate, but only a part as I shall show, is my appreciation of my noble friend Lord Hale who initiated it. I was in another place with him. Inevitably he should speak in this textile debate, because of his identification with the workers of Oldham whom he represented. Again, he was speaking tonight on behalf of a minority of the population, because he understands the suffering which they have experienced. My noble friend has throughout his whole period in Parliament spoken for minorities so often ignored in political controversy, whose deprivations and sufferings were acute. I think of his championship of the blind in a similar way, and perhaps subjectively I participate in the debate because of my appreciation of that fact.

However, it is not only for that reason. For many years I was the representative in another place not only of Eton, where this problem did not arise very largely, but also of Slough. Slough was known as "South Wales in England" because during the unemployment of the 1930s, with the development of the first trading estate at Slough, Welsh unemployed miners poured into the town. I do not think I was ever more moved at my political surgeries on Saturday mornings than by exminers and their wives—often by their wives alone, because the miners themselves were too ill—who came to me and described the effects of pneumoconiosis.

At that time it was difficult to get even elementary justice for those who suffered in that way. Had they served long enough in the pits? Was their disease really due to dust in the mines, or to bronchitis which occurred through different causes? The struggle which one had then to secure something for those exminers! They had come through the 1930s, they had come from a mining industry where wages were hardly at an existence level, and had come from mines which, compared with today, were almost inhuman in their working conditions. They had gone through all that, and yet one had to fight case after case. One had to prove whether they had been 19 years in the pit or 20 years, with medical certificates showing how far their disease was due to dust, or due to the social conditions and wretched housing in which they lived. I am glad to have lived until today when their position is so much better. I join with my noble friend Lord Hale in paying tribute not only to this Government—but very largely to this Government—but also to preceding Governments which have contributed to the improvement of their conditions.

My noble friend Lord Hale has asked today that what has been achieved for the miners should be extended to the cotton industry and to those who are working, as the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, has reminded us, with asbestos at the dockyards. I will not pretend to have any knowledge at all of Plymouth and its dockyard and asbestosis, but I have a little knowledge of the cotton industry. For many years I lived in Lancashire and went into its mills, and heard the noise and felt the heat and the dust, and I am not surprised that under those conditions industrial diseases should have arisen. The number is not so large as that among the exminers, but it is one of the attributes of my noble friend Lord Hale that he is not concerned so much about the numbers who suffer as about the degree of suffering which occurs.

I listened ignorantly, and, perhaps for that reason, I was more interested in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers. She spoke, as I have heard her do in another place, with detailed information and with constructive ideas. But even if the number is smaller in that industry, it is perfectly clear that the conditions of work mean that those who are engaged in it also suffer from this lung disease. She urged that prevention is better even than aid, and of course it is.

In the mining industry, we have seen how conditions have been improved. I think that the same is probably largely true in the cotton industry. The noble Baroness made a plea for preventive measures in that industry and that would be the biggest contribution. But we must not forget the mines, where the number is dwindling because conditions are better, when we are trying to help the comparatively small numbers in the cotton and asbestos industries. And while we seek prevention we must not forget the conditions of those who are the heirs of failure in the past. I would say this to my noble friend Lord Jacques, who is to reply. Can it possibly be said that what has been done for the miners shall not be done for the cotton and asbestos workers?

As I have listened to this debate my mind has been cast back to earlier years. I wrote the biography of Fred Jowett, parttime worker in the cotton mills at 10 years of age, rising to become a Cabinet Minister. I consulted some of my colleagues in order to try to remember the name of the disease in the woollen industry, the suffering from which he sought to remove. Whenever there was a death from it there was a Question by him in the House of Commons. He was so persistent that that disease, by preventive measures as well as by action on behalf of those who suffered from it at the time, has now disappeared.

I conclude by telling my noble friend Lord Hale that he has made many contributions towards progress in Lancashire, Oldham and Africa, where I have been with him. But by initiating this debate tonight he can be perfectly sure that whatever the reply of the Government, depending upon the present financial conditions, his plea that those who suffer from these industrial diseases in the cotton and asbestos industries will surely ensure they have their needs met. By this plea tonight he will have done something, as he has so often done before, to lift the suffering from those who are the victims and to prevent that suffering arising in the future.

8.57 p.m.

Lord TAYLOR of MANSFIELD

My Lords, I shall not take more than a few moments. I would not have risen but for the fact that my noble friend Lord Jacques cannot catch the train that he planned. The purpose of my rising is that I am passionately interested in the subject of industrial lung diseases. Perhaps more than anyone present in the House tonight, I have lived all my life among men who have long been concerned with these conditions. My own father died, choking to death, from the dust he inhaled at the colliery. I myself worked for almost 20 years underground, so it will be realised that I have lived with this pneumoconiosis problem practically all my life.

But my real purpose in rising is to congratulate my noble friend Lord Hale on focusing attention not only on pneumoconiosis but on byssinosis and asbestosis. We all know that my noble friend has this streak of human sympathy and kindliness to those who are the victims of industrial disease. He showed this in another place and has continued to show it here. I not only appreciate his efforts but congratulate him on his interest in those who are the victims of industrial diseases.

I believe we shall have a further opportunity in the not too distant future of making longer speeches on this subject when the Coal Industry Bill comes before us, because Clause I of that measure deals with the question of what the Government have done for the miners with pneumoconiosis. I may repeat myself on a future occasion, but I want to say that all sides of the mining industry—the union, the Coal Board and the men in the coalfields—deeply appreciate what this Government have done, apart from the Industrial Injuries Act because benefit in that sphere will continue. This is something which I would describe as damages at Common Law. I will leave it at that, because I might have an opportunity of saying more later. I wanted only to thank my noble friend Lord Hale for focusing attention on industrial lung diseases.

9 p.m.

Lord SANDYS

My Lords, I wish to add my thanks and tribute to those of others to the noble Lord, Lord Hale, for bringing this subject before us tonight, but I also rise spontaneously in support of my noble friend Lady Vickers, who made suggestions which were both valuable and practicable from her long experience in this sphere. Her suggestion, which commends itself very much to this side of the House and I hope to the Government, is for the reinforcement of the regulations and for the reinforcement of both the Factory Inspectorate and, a body which has not been mentioned so far, the Alkaline Inspectorate, a well-respected body which was established nearly 100 years ago. In this connection, I am in the debt of the noble Baroness, Lady White, who arranged for an extremely interesting film to be shown in your Lordships' Committee Rooms some months ago entitled The Right to Know, a film largely concerned with asbestosis. The concluding argument of the film urged the powers that be—Government, Factory Inspectorate, Alkaline Inspectorate and all responsible for the health conditions in industrial circumstances—to enforce the regulations.

It is true to say that conditions vary from one place of work to another, but I commend to the Government what has been commended already, Cmnd. 5443, and I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, and the noble Lord, Lord Hale, for the tributes they paid to my right honourable friend Sir Keith Joseph, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Services in the last Conservative Government. I had the honour to serve in his Department for a brief period and it was clearly his view that the establishment of that Committee of Inquiry should lead to practical measures. It so happens that it falls to the present Government to bring about legislation and we hope that this will be both speedy and effective.

9.2 p.m.

Lord JACQUES

My Lords, all noble Lords appreciate the feeling that my noble friend Lord Hale and the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, have for their former constituents, something which we all admire. I regret that I cannot give my noble friend the kind of promise which he would like me to give him, but I assure him that I will direct the attention of my right honourable friend not only to the debate but, in particular, to what he said in asking his Question. The Government's Coal Industry Bill was given a Third Reading in another place on 10th April and is due for Second Reading in this House on 8th May. As my noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield said, Clause 1 provides for the grant of a sum not exceeding £100 million as the Government's contribution towards the National Coal Board's compensation scheme. The Government have no plans to provide a similar grant to other industries where the circumstances, in the opinion of the Government, are different from those with which the coal industry is faced.

All sufferers from the occupational lung diseases to which my noble friend refers in his Question are able to apply for benefit under the State scheme of National Insurance. Under the State scheme, benefits are paid to 41,000 sufferers from pneumoconiosis, 3,300 sufferers from byssinosis and 800 sufferers from asbestosis. In each case they receive a disablement benefit according to the degree of disablement. This is paid in addition to sickness, invalidity or retirement pension. If the sufferer is unable to follow his regular employment or some equivalent standard of employment, he is entitled to a special hardship allowance. This benefit is paid irrespective of blameworthiness.

Lord HALE

My Lords, I venture to correct my noble friend. The pension is not paid according to the degree of disablement in the case of byssinosis. The sufferer has to establish a minimum degree of byssinosis before he gets it, despite the Minority Report of that Committee by Mr. P. R. A. Jaques, who recommended that pensions should be paid even for 1 per cent. byssinosis, simply because if a man has got the disease he has got it to start with, and it will get worse. I think that at the moment my noble friend will find that no payment is payable for less than a 20 per cent. disablement.

Lord JACQUES

My Lords, my information is that if the sufferer can show that he is unable to follow his regular employment or some employment of a similar standard, then he is entitled to the special hardship allowance. As I was saying, this is paid irrespective of blameworthiness; it does not preclude a claim for damages against the employer and the amount of benefit which is paid is not reduced because of any damages. The amounts of the payments are frequently reviewed and the last increase was at the beginning of this month.

I come to the entirely separate question of civil liability for damages. Where it can be shown that the condition of the worker is wholly or in part the fault of the employer, or any other person, then that is a civil claim for damages against that person. Under the present law, that liability has to be insured and even before compulsory insurance, which dated from 1969, it was certainly the practice of the larger employers to insure. I must, however, add that as a general rule, one-half of the National Insurance benefits which are received by the sufferer are taken into account in assessing any damages.

Regarding the coal industry, following changes in the law arising out of court decisions, particularly those relating to time limits, there were 3,500 outstanding claims for damages against the National Coal Board and it was estimated that there were 39,000 probable claims. The union and the employer negotiated a scheme which in their opinion would save the industry money. It certainly would save tremendous legal expense on the part of both the unions and the employer. In addition to any economy there might be, there was—perhaps more importantly —the absence of delay which such a scheme would give. Consequently, they were encouraged by the Government to enter into negotiations to try to settle this matter in a way which would minimise expense and, at the same time, minimise delay.

The cost of dealing with the backlog of cases is estimated to be £125 million. Because of the financial position of the industry and its importance to the national economy, the Government have undertaken to grant a sum not exceeding £100 million for the purpose of meeting this liability under the scheme. If there are other industries where the circumstances are similar, the initiative must come from the unions and the employers —that is where the initiative came from in the case of the coal industry. But beyond that I cannot, in the present economic circumstances, promise that there will be any money forthcoming from the Government.

My Lords, we have to bear in mind that at the moment a Royal Commission is sitting considering civil liability and compensation for personal injury. It is perfectly true that this Commission has a wideranging inquiry. It is concerned with the whole field of civil liability and compensation for personal injury, but among the questions which it will be considering is the "no fault" liability of the employer, and it is expected that it will make recommendations. If it makes recommendations in regard to the "no fault" liability of the employer and those recommendations are to be implemented, then it could make radical changes to the Common Law. The Government therefore contemplate that when the Report is received they will find it necessary to review the whole question of benefits under the State scheme and damages which can be expected from the employer. They feel that in the meantime any reconsideration of the State scheme would be unwise, and that that should be deferred until we have the Report of the Royal Commission on civil liability.

So far as the future is concerned, the Government rely very heavily on the Health and Safety at Work Act. The main provisions of this Act came into operation only on the first of this month. It is the intention of the Government, having got this Statute through Parliament, to use it in the way in which it was intended by Parliament to be used: that is to say, something which is not merely on the Statute Book, but which is backed by enforcement administration. In the meantime, extremely useful work is being done by the Joint Standing Committee on health and safety in the cotton industry. In particular, its 1974 Report, in addition to setting hygiene standards for cotton dust, made recommendations for reducing airborne dust levels and called for further research.

At the moment the inspectors of the Health and Safety Executive are very deeply involved in checking cotton factories to see how far the recommendations of the Joint Committee are being carried out, and with a view to enforcing those recommendations. In addition, the Government have, since the 1974 Report of the Joint Standing Committee, financed further research as recommended by that Committee, and that research is being done by the Shirley Institute.

So far as the cotton industry is concerned, the Government are indebted to the employers and the trade unions for the co-operation they have given. We believe that the combined efforts of the Health and Safety at Work Executive, the employers and the trade unions can make a significant contribution to the reduction of the incidence of byssinosis, and we hope that with the attention that what has been said in this debate may get, we may further safeguard the future, as well as do something for looking after the legacy of those who are at present suffering for past neglect.

Baroness VICKERS

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I remind him that he has not said much about asbestosis. Is there to be continual research on that? Secondly, what happens to people who develop the symptoms 20 or 30 years afterwards? How are they going to contact the employers and so on? Do they just go to court and try to get the money that way. It is going to be difficult.

Lord JACQUES

My Lords, I have tried to emphasise that there are two distinct issues so far as benefits are concerned. The noble Baroness will admit that this Government and past Governments are not just ignoring the whole thing. They are providing State benefits under the National Insurance Scheme. That is one part. So far as damages against the employer are concerned, there are difficulties. That is why the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, set up this Committee. It will, among other things, be considering the liability of employers in cases of accidents and disease arising from work.

Lord HALE

My Lords, may I interrupt to put a question which I put before and to which I understood I was going to get a reply? After all this talk about action for tort, has the noble Lord's research department been able to find a single successful action for damages for tort arising out of coal miners' pneumoconiosis or cotton workers' byssinosis in the whole history of industrial diseases? I conceded that there was one in asbestosis, but that was rather a special case. Has there ever been a successful action for tort in the courts?

Lord JACQUES

My Lords, my information is that there has been, but not in the case of byssinosis. I will make inquiries and write to the noble Lord.

House adjourned at sixteen minutes past nine o'clock.