§ Mr. EnnisTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many posthumous claims have been received from the dependants of former miners suffering from chronic bronchitis and emphysema; how many of these claims have so far been processed; and what estimate he has made of when all such claims will have been dealt with. [124949]
§ Mrs. Liddell[holding answer 19 June 2000]: To date we have received 36,889 claims for respiratory diseases from the widows and families of deceased former miners.
Where the condition caused or materially contributed to the miner's death, we have been paying bereavement awards to widows on the production of the death certificate since last year. To date we have paid some £30 million in over 2,700 cases. In addition, we are processing claims from widows and dependants through the full medical assessment process as we receive the necessary claims forms from solicitors. This process has been agreed with the solicitors representing the miners and is designed to calculate the compensation that would have been due to the deceased miner, but is now due to the widow and dependants. So far we have completed nearly 300 such assessments for deceased claims, but we expect this number to increase significantly over the coming weeks as the relevant medical records are obtained.
We anticipate that all existing claims will be completed in two to three years' time. This compares with 15 to 20 years if individual cases were dealt with the conventional way through the Courts.