MPs back calls for ruling on work victims

Dec 27 2008 by William Green, The Journal

VICTIMS of industrial diseases in the North East are being left waiting for compensation because of Government delays, according to MPs.

Gordon Brown earlier this year said he was determined to take some action to help victims of pleural plaques, which is an asbestos-related lung condition, after a House of Lords ruling last year prevented them claiming compensation after insurance firms argued to end the payouts to people connected to heavy industry.

The Prime Minister said: “Asbestosis and mesothelioma are terrible diseases, and all who have seen the effects that they cause know that we have to do more to help the victims of those diseases.”

A consultation on the issue was launched, but more than 100 MPs – including representatives from the North East – have signed a Commons motion expressing increasing concern about delays in announcing the Government’s response and the proposed action to deliver justice for pleural plaques sufferers.

The motion reads: “Now is the time to reverse the Law Lords decision of October 2007 that has deprived pleural plaques sufferers of much needed compensation and prior to the Law Lords decision worked in establishing liability at a stage prior to the onset of a fatal asbestos-related disease.”

North East Labour MPs Denis Murphy, Dave Anderson, Bill Etherington, John Cummings, Ronnie Campbell, Fraser Kemp, Frank Cook and Stephen Hepburn have signed the motion.

Ministers are also under pressure to recognise without “further delay” that osteoarthritis of the knee is a coal mining disease, with more than 40 MPs backing a Commons early day motion on the topic – including Labour’s Denis Murphy, Ronnie Campbell, Bill Etherington, John Cummings, Frank Cook and Dave Anderson from the North East.

The motion says the Government should implement the recommendations of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council – which provides guidance to ministers – over the condition, which would make “it possible for this group of mainly elderly disabled workers to claim industrial injury disablement benefit”.

Speaking to The Journal, Blaydon MP Dave Anderson said most of the risk faced by miners as well as workers in shipbuilding and other heavy industries could have been reduced or completely eliminated to some extent.

He said: “The Government should enable legislation to go through to ensure they can be compensated. This is not all Government money but mostly the insurers.