§ Mr. WigleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will widen the definition of industrial diseases, for the purposes of pneumoconiosis and workers' compensation legislation, so as to include associated lung diseases such as chronic bronchitis where there is evidence that such a condition exists in a person who has evidence of any dust whatsoever on his lungs.
§ Mr. ScottWe are advised on the list of prescribed industrial diseases by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. Its report on bronchitis and emphysema published in May last year (Cm. 379) concluded that it is at present impossible to distinguish airflow limitation caused by dust from that due to other causes such as smoking (the most common cause of bronchitis and emphysema) and that the available evidence is that the scale of the effects of dust is in any case relatively small. It did not recommend any extension of the current prescribed industrial diseases provisions, and we agree with that view.