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Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2017

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord James of Blackheath for their comments. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked a number of fairly detailed questions, a great many of which will, I suspect, be far better dealt with in correspondence, if the noble Lord will accept that. The answers will come down to rather detailed figures because he asked about the analysis of the levels of claims, which obviously depends on the age of the complainants. I have a sneaking suspicion that a table setting out such details might be of greater use to the noble Lord and other noble Lords who have taken a great interest in the matter.

I appreciate that we did not have a debate on this last year because the CPI was where it was and so there was no uprating. One could say that one of the benefits of this being normally uprated in line with inflation, because it is separate from the others and at the discretion of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, is that we manage to have some debate on this important matter each year, with the exception of last year. That way, these matters can be exercised, rather than subsumed in the general uprating debates that happen—for example, last week. Having made that broad point, let me try to answer a number of the questions that noble Lords have raised.

The first is one on which, again, I will have to offer to write to my noble friend. He asked about the support that the Royal British Legion might be offering to former Navy servicemen, particularly from HM Yacht “Britannia”, who have suffered from this, and whether they were going to lose out as a result of payments being made by the Royal British Legion. I will take advice on that and will write to my noble friend.

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One small point that I can make, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has already referred to, is that children and spouses who might have suffered as a

result of contamination from, for example, washing clothes and therefore inhaling asbestos will be covered by the 2008 scheme. Since the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, mentioned that, I will repeat—and of course we all remember our dates—that 2008 saw an improvement to the scheme by the previous Government, for which I think all those who suffer are very grateful. That is part of what we are debating today.

The first point that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made was about inflation and the small rise of 1%. The noble Lord will just have to accept that, as with other benefits, that is the September-on-September figure. Any future inflation will obviously be covered when my right honourable friend considers this. There is of course a discretion in future years, and a catch-up can take place if it is thought appropriate. However, my right honourable friend considered it right that we should stick to that CPI figure to September 2016, though I am sure he will consider that again in later years.

The noble Lord asked, with regard to both pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma—I apologise to the Committee; I have great problems with those words —just how many claims were successful and what was the percentage of success. He sought in particular an analysis of the levels of claims. Again, this is a matter on which it would be helpful if I wrote to him, in this case setting out details of those missing out and so on. I give the assurance that not only will I write to him but I will make the analysis available in the Library in the usual way for the benefit of other noble Lords who have taken an interest in this issue. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, nodding; I know she has taken an interest in these matters in the past, and if necessary I will write to her directly.

Broadly speaking, with regard to the number of claimants, my noble friend Lord Bourne, dealing with these regulations in 2015, talked about them possibly reaching a peak in 2018. I would not want to be quite so specific but we are seeing that the figures will probably level out towards the end of this decade and then, because of the era that we are dealing with— very largely, 1950 to 1980 saw a high use of asbestos, but I appreciate that some other forms of asbestos were not banned until somewhat later—we should begin to see a decline because of the nature and demographic of those concerned and the very long period for which these conditions can lie dormant. So, broadly speaking, we are talking about a levelling out and then a decline but, very sadly, I suspect we will have to continue with this annual debate for a number of years to come.