§ Mr. HepburnTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many miners are claiming compensation under the medical assessment procedures for chest disease, in each region. [150905]
§ Mr. HainTo date, IRISC, the Department's claims handlers, have registered over 134,000 compensation claims for respiratory disease. Of these, almost 66,000 claimants have been tested and the results have generated 11,500 expedited offers. In terms of payments, the Department has been able to make over 30,900 individual payments, including bereavement awards, interim settlements and full and final payments amounting to £113.7 million.
The number of miners claiming compensation under the medical assessment procedures for chest disease broken down by region is as follows:
411W
Respiratory Disease Postal region Total number of claims Wales South Wales 26,788 Other 1,129 Scotland Fife 2,254 Other 8,384 England Nottinghamshire 15,776 Yorkshire 35,405 North East 18,985 North West 7,644 Midlands 13,742 South 3,454 Other 781 Total 134,342
§ Mr. HepburnTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much was paid out to miners, in each region,(a) for vibration white finger and (b) for chest disease from January 2000. [150906]
§ Mr. HainIn total, the Department has now made around 74,500 individual payments, including bereavement awards, interim settlements and full and final settlements to claimants in respect of compensation for respiratory disease and vibration related disease, totalling over £334 million. The Department continues to pay out around £1 million per day in compensation.
The amount paid out to miners, broken down by region for Vibration White Finger, and respiratory disease is as follows:
£ Postal region Vibration white finger Respiratory disease Wales South Wales 28,016,362 25,566,345 Other 458,683 958,183 Scotland Fife 2,501,118 2,006,834 Other 13,063,472 6,100,425 England Nottinghamshire 31,237,276 12,322,057 Yorkshire 68,142,657 30,821,716 North East 55,325,465 15,733,786 North West 6,098,231 5,852,241 Midlands 13,369,646 11,881,276 South 2,317,047 2,388,273 Other 87,532 80,401 Total 220,617,490 113,711,838
§ Mr. HepburnTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many medical assessment procedures were conducted under the miners' compensation for chest disease agreement from January 2000 to date in each region. [150907]
§ Mr. HainI refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Mr. Williams) on 7 February 2001,Official Report, columns 553–56W.
§ Mr. HepburnTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what efforts he is making in speeding up compensation payments to miners in the North East Region for(a) chest disease and (b) vibration white finger. [150904]
§ Mr. HainTo date, IRISC, the Department's claims handlers, have registered over 134,000 claims for respiratory disease of which almost 19,000 are from claimants in the North East region. In relation to Vibration White Finger, around 19,000 claims of the 116,000 claims received are from claimants in the North East region.
With regard to claims for respiratory disease, there have been problems getting the Medical Assessment Process, MAP, up to speed. One of the most significant problems affecting the UK as a whole, is the limited number of respiratory specialists who are able to assess claimants to the degree for which the Department was found liable. Healthcall, the company contracted to undertake the Medical Assessment Process, MAP, continues to actively 412W recruit respiratory specialists and lung function technicians. We are considering with them how to increase specialist resources for the North East centres. In addition, the Department has been continuously streamlining the process to maximise the efficiency of these scarce resources.
Currently, there have been over 3,900 individual payments, including bereavement awards, interim and full and final settlements, to claimants in the North East region for respiratory disease amounting to £15.7 million. With regard to progress in the North East region for Vibration White Finger, I would point out that the centre catering for this area is one of the three centres with the greatest testing capacity overall in the UK. To date, the Department has made over 9,200 individual payments, including interim settlements and full and final payments amounting to £55.3 million in this region.