Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

The Government have to be careful about this, because the money used to support such bids is national lottery funding and so is not open to the Government to direct. My hon. Friend will also be aware that despite the excellence of Yorkshire’s bid, it chose not to be in a position to share the commercial details of the bid with UK Sport before it made it. Now that Yorkshire has won, it is meeting UK Sport. I very much hope that a way will be found to achieve precisely the end that he is advocating.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

To discourage the closure of libraries such as Aintree library in my constituency, the Government need to ensure that the money is available to keep them open. Will the Secretary of State speak to her colleagues across Government to ensure that the necessary funding is in place to safeguard library services such as those in my constituency that are under threat from cuts to council funding?

[Mr Vaizey]

This is a time when everyone is having to tighten their belt, and we are clearly having to make savings. If Labour wants to make it clear which cuts it would reverse, it should by all means do so, but these crocodile tears are pointless. The council needs to run its library service; it is responsible for doing that. It should look at Hammersmith and Fulham council, which has closed no libraries and is reducing its council tax.

Transforming Rehabilitation

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely hope that RBLI will be one of the organisations that will come forward. It is an example of practical delivery of the Work programme by the voluntary sector on the ground, contrary to what we sometimes hear. There is a particular challenge in dealing with the number of ex-service people in our prisons. The more expertise we can bring to bear on that, the better.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State mentioned in passing the importance of mental health in prison and the number of prisoners who suffer from mental health problems. I am sure that he understands the need for significant support, both in prison and after, in reducing reoffending among that group. Will he confirm that counselling and other services for those with mental health problems will get the priority they need, both in prison and after, as a result of these changes?

[Chris Grayling]

The support in prisons for mental health is substantially provided by the national health service. We have to make sure that what starts in prison carries on after prison, but one of the flaws in the current system is that it does not work very well in that respect. I hope that, by creating a service that is much more through the gate and by addressing the life-management of offenders as they move through prison and afterwards, there will be continuity in the delivery of those services and that a mentor will look three months ahead and say, “Prisoner X is coming out and needs to carry on with their counselling service. I will make sure that happens.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The most vulnerable people in my constituency will suffer most from cuts to legal aid. Is it not the case that under this Government there is one law for the few who can afford expensive legal advice and another law for the rest?

[Chris Grayling]

It is noticeable that time and again in these sessions we hear what are effectively spending commitments from the Opposition. They want to spend more money on legal aid, despite the fact that—by their own admission—they left us with no money in the bank. The hon. Gentleman must accept that we have to take tough decisions to reduce the cost of the most expensive legal aid system in Europe, and we will take those decisions.

Police (Complaints And Conduct) Bill

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

The amendment seeks to make express provision, on the face of the Bill, for sanctions in relation to a failure to attend an interview. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) and other members of the all-party group for tabling it. As the shadow Police Minister has just said, it airs an important issue. I am happy to assure my hon. Friend and the Committee that such a provision is not needed because the Secretary of State already has the power under the Police Act 1996 to make regulations about misconduct. The effect of the amendment, were it put into law, would be to duplicate a regulation-making power that already exists in the 1996 Act.

I absolutely support the need for an effective sanction for non-attendance. Various suggestions have been made about how we should convey this to those who will have to operate the sanction. I am fairly sure that this discussion will be important in conveying the will of Parliament to those who do that. I must resist the temptation of the suggestion from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) that I should write to chief constables telling them in detail what they should do. That would be the classic interference in operational matters that we seek to avoid, for obvious reasons.

I am satisfied that, in relation to serving officers, an effective sanction for failing to comply with the witness attendance requirement in clause 1 already exists. The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2012 include a provision to the effect that misconduct means a breach of prescribed standards of behaviour. A failure to attend an interview, where required to do so, would be a breach of one or more of the prescribed standards, with the result that the officer should become the subject of misconduct proceedings. Those would be serious misconduct proceedings and could result in the officer’s dismissal.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I am glad that the Minister has explained the procedures. If he will not write to chief constables to tell them what the disciplinary action should be, I take it that they will be made aware of exactly what is intended and what he has just said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

The police and crime commissioner is there to hold the chief officer to account. If they believe that the chief officer is behaving wrongly, they will have a discussion about it, and because the commissioner is elected, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester rightly said, any sensible chief officer would inevitably wish to avoid a public dispute. The point is that the chief officer takes the operational decisions and the police and crime commissioner holds them to account for their effect. His basic question was who was responsible for enforcing the discipline and misconduct regulations, and the answer is the chief officer.

[Bill Esterson]

I do not want to stray too far into the role of police and crime commissioners, but if a police and crime commissioner has a conversation with a chief constable because they are unhappy about that, or anything else for that matter, what power will the commissioner have to enforce that provision?

[Damian Green]

Police and crime commissioners have very significant powers in relation to chief constables. Their ultimate power is to dismiss the chief constable if they believe that they are behaving so badly that that ultimate sanction is necessary, so the legislation provides considerable powers.

My main point is that the effect of this change will simply be to replicate powers that are already provided for in statute, but it is also important to note that clause 1 places a witness attendance requirement on different categories of individuals. It applies not only to serving police officers, who are members of police forces and subject to the conduct regulations, but to police staff, who operate under a different conduct regime and are outside the scope of the conduct regulations. As such, it would be neither appropriate nor effective for the Secretary of State to make regulations for a universal sanction applying to those two very different categories of individual.

In clause 1, we have been careful to mirror, as far as possible, the existing provisions in the Police Reform Act 2002 relating to the interview attendance requirement for those who are subject to investigation by the IPCC. As such, the two powers should be similar. The existing provisions in the 2002 Act relating to those under investigation do not include any provision for sanctions. To provide expressly for a sanction in primary legislation in relation to witnesses but not to those who are subject to investigation by the IPCC would be anomalous. Such a provision would suggest that the new power relating to witnesses is somehow of greater importance and should be more robust than the existing power relating to suspects, and that position risks falling into confusion, as the right hon. Member for Delyn rightly warned, when we want clarity. That, I am afraid, would be the effect of the amendment; there would be more confusion than clarity. In any case, the Secretary of State has the power to do that.

Let me address the issues raised by the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). If a serving officer refuses to attend an IPCC interview, they should be subject to sanctions, which are serious and could result in dismissal. If the officer continues to refuse to attend, they can still be investigated by the IPCC and, where appropriate, charges can still be brought regardless of whether they attended an interview or refused to do so. Therefore, failure to attend the interview is not a way of avoiding the decisions of the IPCC. Such a failure would be a breach of prescribed standards of behaviour, and the officer would rightly become the subject of misconduct proceedings.

The final, overarching point in reply to the hon. Lady’s questions is that the IPCC is an investigatory body. It has not asked for the power to impose sanctions, nor is it particularly well-equipped to exercise that power; it is there to investigate. Having said that, I recognise that we are all anxious to ensure that there is clarity on the availability of an effective sanction.

Police (Complaints and Conduct) Bill

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

It is for the IPCC to decide such questions. The I stands for “Independent”, so it is not for Ministers to stand here and tell the IPCC how to define its role or the powers that we give it. It is for us to give it the powers, but it must define how best to use them. So, if the hon. Lady will permit me, I will leave that to the IPCC to decide. It will decide such questions in that case and in any other, and it is right that the decision should sit with it.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing the start of the debate. The Minister has talked about reopening investigations that have already been looked into by the Police Complaints Authority. Given the number of officers who were persuaded to change their statements and the scale of the cover-up, does he envisage that those issues will be covered by this provision in the Bill?

[Damian Green]

The previous Government passed a perfectly sensible piece of legislation when setting up the IPCC to prevent it from becoming a body that would investigate every controversial police case that had been investigated by its predecessor body. The reason for including this provision in the Bill is that the IPCC has told the Government very firmly that it needs the power to investigate a case that has already been investigated by the PCA, for the reasons that I have given relating to what happened on that day, and that it wants the high hurdle of “exceptional circumstances” to be set. One element that would enable it to get over that high hurdle would be the arrival of significant new evidence in a public interest case. As the hon. Gentleman says, the fact that there is evidence of statements having been altered on an industrial scale certainly hits the target as far as new evidence is concerned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) mentioned the experience of some of his constituents at the inquests. That is something that has been said to me as well. Family members have told me they felt that they were the criminals, so bad was the atmosphere and the way they were treated by those carrying out the inquest and some of those giving evidence, including police officers, some of whom might be among those who need to be dealt with by the Bill. I welcome the provisions and the attempt to do just that.

The independent panel report, among other things, found evidence of extensive alteration of police records and attempts to impugn the reputations of the deceased. In its response to the report, the IPCC noted that it could not investigate all aspects of the police’s conduct, because when the IPCC took over from the Police Complaints Authority, a transitional provisions order set out that certain old cases could not be investigated under the new framework. The Minister has adequately covered that point.

The Bill will provide two key new powers. The first will require a serving police officer to attend an interview as a witness. This new power will be increased by regulations. The second new power will be to set aside the relevant articles of the transitional provisions order in exceptional circumstances, so that the IPCC can investigate certain old cases, where the PCA had already been involved. I will speak briefly to both points.

In its response to the panel’s report, the IPCC set out the potential misconduct that had been disclosed. The potential criminal and misconduct issues fall into two broad categories: allegations—which go to the heart of what happened at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989—that individuals or institutions may be culpable for the deaths; and allegations about what happened after the disaster, including allegations that evidence was fabricated and misinformation spread in an attempt to avoid blame. The IPCC decision document set out a large number of matters that it proposed to investigate, but noted that it was legally prevented from looking at some matters that had previously been investigated. That is why we are here today.

I will give one example of what is set out in the report: the early lie, by Chief Superintendent Duckenfield, about the gates being forced open, which was corrected by the chief constable that evening. This was investigated by West Midlands police under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority. As such, although the IPCC deplores such dishonesty, it is legally prevented from investigating the issue further; it will therefore not be investigated. There are many examples of police actions that the PCA had already investigated. That is why this Bill is so important and why it is so important that the IPCC should be given the powers to investigate what happened at Hillsborough.

It is right that action can be taken against retired officers. A number of right hon. and hon. Members have expressed their concerns about exactly how retired officers will be dealt with. The Policing Minister has acknowledged that point, but not yet to the satisfaction of all of us in the Chamber. We all understand the difficulties, which is why they are not addressed by the Bill at this point. However, I repeat that there are dangers, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley gave the Pinochet example as one potential difficulty.

There were serious failings on the day and an immediate and longer-term cover-up by police officers, yet no one has been convicted for their role in either the deaths of the 96 or the systematic cover-up and the vilification of the dead, their families and the injured. It is to be hoped that the process this Bill is part of will enable that injustice to be rectified. Officers were pressurised to change their statements. This Bill, along with the interest that Members in this House have demonstrated over the last few years, will not only show the strength of our feeling, but reflect the strength of public opinion, which is also represented by the number of people who have signed the latest petition and previous ones. It is now right that officers and former officers come forward to give evidence and tell their story—it certainly should have happened before—knowing that they have public support and that they are not driven by some misguided view that they should protect colleagues or former colleagues, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) said. Officers certainly should be coming forward to tell their story. This Bill will ensure that serving officers do that, but it will hopefully encourage former officers to do so as well.

The Minister rightly spoke of the “industrial scale” of the alteration of statements. That is an apt description. He was right, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) was right to say that nothing must stand in the way of the application for a new inquest, given that Anne Williams is so seriously ill. Indeed, she spends much of her time in a hospice. Justice for Anne and the other families is the absolute priority. They have campaigned hard for recognition of what happened; they have campaigned for far too long. That has been acknowledged in the independent panel’s report. From what the Attorney-General has said, the application for new inquests is imminent—I am sure that is the case. This Bill provides an opportunity for one of the big injustices—the action of those police officers who broke the law—to be addressed. The Bill should be allowed to proceed as quickly as possible.

Leveson Inquiry

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I agree. I think that there are serious practical problems with some of Lord Leveson’s recommendations, and the hon. Lady has highlighted one of them. The whole area of data protection raises some very big questions. There is also the question of whether Ofcom should have any involvement in press regulation. I think that Ofcom itself would have severe misgivings about that, because it is not what it was set up to do. It was set up to do an entirely different job. It is a Government-appointed regulatory body, and even if it acts as a backstop regulator, that will be giving a Government-appointed body, the chairman of which is appointed by the Secretary of State, a role in the regulation of the press.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Is it not more important for us to establish total public confidence, which has been shattered over many years? My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned the Hillsborough families, one of whom wrote to remind me of the 23 years that it took to deal with the injustices, which were caused in large part by newspaper reporting, not least by The Sun. Is it not important for us to do that, on behalf of the victims and the public at large?

[Mr Whittingdale]

Of course it is important for us to establish public confidence. What we need to do is persuade the public that things will never be the same again: that the new regime on offer is completely different, that it is independent, and that it has real powers. However, as I think Shami Chakrabarti said at the weekend, the question of whether it requires statutory underpinning is about processes, not outcomes. We need to focus on the outcomes of this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are grateful to the Minister. I do not wish to be unkind, but the answers are simply too long. Progress is too slow and it needs to be speeded up.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The double-dip recession created by the Government has made it much harder for young people in general and young offenders in particular to find work. What conversations is the Minister having with his colleagues to encourage growth in the economy and to solve the problem of youth unemployment in general and young offenders in particular?

[Mr Blunt]

The last time I looked, Spain’s interest rates were about 4% higher than ours. If we had those interest rates, it would cost the country £40 billion a year to borrow the amount of money necessary, which would certainly put paid to all the employment programmes that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

Mesothelioma (Legal Aid Reform)

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Hywel Williams (in the Chair)]

We now come to the debate on the effect of legal aid reform on mesothelioma victims. I call Bill Esterson—you may speak seated, if you find that helpful.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Williams. I will stand, but it is kind of you to make the offer. It is a pleasure that the debate is being held under your chairmanship. It is an important debate, which I am sure that you and Members in all parts of the House appreciate—so far, it is mostly Opposition Members, but I know that Government Members have also indicated an interest in the subject.

I requested this debate because the Government have said that they will review the support given to victims of mesothelioma and their families following the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which includes industrial diseases along with personal injury in measures to end no win, no fee litigation in the courts. The Government say that they want to stop fraudulent claims, but I believe that there is no evidence of fraudulent claims by those suffering from mesothelioma. That is the basis of this debate.

The House of Lords tried to amend the Act to exclude victims of mesothelioma from the changes to no win, no fee legislation, but the amendments made by the Lords were rejected by the Government. Instead, the Government said that they would hold a review and consider how to support victims and their families. So far, Ministers have not said what that review will consist of or when it will be held. Victims and their families need to know. When the Minister responds, he should tell the House what will happen in the review so that those suffering from that terrible disease can know and compare their evidence, so as not to lose out as a result of the end of no win, no fee.

The Government decided to include industrial diseases along with road traffic accidents in stopping no win, no fee. The implication of the change is that mesothelioma claimants are part of the compensation culture. That may well affect some personal injury claims, including whiplash, but mesothelioma victims are clearly not making spurious claims. When my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) put that point to the Minister on 17 April, she asked him to give one example of a spurious mesothelioma claim. The lack of an answer made the point that there are none.

Let us remind ourselves of what mesothelioma does. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) said in the debate in April that

“one fibre could go into someone’s lung and lie dormant for many years, but when it becomes active there is no alternative—that person suffers horribly and then they die. There is no cure, no remission and no element of survival; they die…Everybody who gets mesothelioma will die an agonising death.”—[Official Report, 17 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 279.]

The idea that those suffering from mesothelioma could be involved in fraudulent claims is absurd and disgraceful.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate. Does he agree that one of the big issues is how long we must wait before we get information about how the review will start? Since we had the debate in the main Chamber, some 200 people have died of mesothelioma.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend has a long and distinguished record of fighting for those suffering from many industrial diseases, especially mesothelioma. He has made the point well: 200 people have died since the last time the issue was debated. That demonstrates the urgent need for the Minister to indicate exactly when the review will be held and how quickly it will conclude.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will be aware, as I am, of constituents who have unfortunately contracted asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma. Why are people who have terrible diseases through no fault of their own being doubly punished by the Government? Is it a case of the law of unintended consequences, or does my hon. Friend believe that they are being targeted by this uncaring Government?

[Bill Esterson]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for his question, and I hope that the Minister will answer it. We could all make our guesses as to the true motives. There are well-established financial links between the Government and the insurance industry, which might be at the heart of why things are being done in the way that they are.

It cannot be right that victims of asbestos-related diseases should be required to surrender a quarter of the damages that they have been awarded to pay for legal costs. Those damages are awarded to recognise and compensate men and women who have suffered terribly, if it is at all possible to compensate them for the pain, suffering and life-shortening that resulted from their work.

Mesothelioma has an extraordinarily long latency period of up to 60 years. As well as those 30,000 who have already died in the United Kingdom from mesothelioma, an estimated 60,000 more are yet to lose their lives due to past exposure, the vast majority of which occurred at work.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the coffers of the Government, in the shape of the Department for Work and Pensions, will also lose out? There has always been a payment back of benefits that have had to be paid up front early on because of people’s short life span once diagnosed with mesothelioma. Does he also agree that we should be making absolutely certain that no part of the compensation is taken out? The money should be used for the victims and their families and to repay the Government. Will my hon. Friend congratulate a colleague of mine in the Welsh Assembly, Mick Antoniw, who proposes to introduce a private Member’s Bill that would compensate the NHS for its expenditure on treating mesothelioma by recovering the money from liable companies?

[Bill Esterson]

I am happy to congratulate my hon. Friend’s colleague. She is right that it is the companies that cause this terrible pain and suffering, as well as their insurers, that should bear the financial costs, although there is no way of truly compensating the victims and their families for their suffering. It should be the private industry that caused the condition, and its insurers, that pays, not the public purse.

People were exposed to this terrible disease at work in situations which employers knew would ultimately kill the workers. However, as things stand under the legislation, those same people and their families will lose a quarter of the compensation that they absolutely should receive from the insurers of those companies.

The Government rejected a Lords amendment that would have exempted mesothelioma from the provision, but they have yet to say how sufferers and their families will be protected. In all the non-answers from Ministers, they have yet to justify to thousands of families why they did not exempt mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is an exceptional case, because the problem was known about for more than a century. Asbestos was identified as a poisonous substance in 1892 and has been banned from use in this country for almost half a century, yet employers knowingly exposed their workers to it day in, day out. They knew the dangers and ignored them for decades. They were eventually held accountable, but ever since the first successful case against employers and insurers on asbestos-related diseases, they have kept coming back to the courts and the issue has kept coming back to this place.

Mesothelioma causes intractable pain and severe breathlessness, which means that more than half of all the very modest damages claimed are for pain and suffering. The Government’s proposals would have a disproportionate effect on mesothelioma sufferers, because victims receive a higher proportion of their damages for pain and suffering than those who claim for personal injury.

The legislation requires terminally ill asbestos victims who succeed in a claim for compensation against negligent, guilty employers to pay up to 25% of their damages for pain and suffering in legal costs. They are not part of the compensation culture, nor are they legally aided, so to include them in that provision is wholly wrong. Many sufferers are so defeated by their illness that they never make a claim under current circumstances. Victim support groups have been told by victims that the change proposed would be a significant further deterrent to them making a claim at all. That would represent a big saving for the insurance industry, which therefore has the financial interest hinted at by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram).

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this issue for the umpteenth time. It is always possible to tell when an issue ought to be dealt with. We fought constantly for bronchitis and emphysema to be treated as industrial diseases, and did the same with vibration white finger. In 1999-2000, we managed to get the show on the road. Mesothelioma has been debated in this place ad nauseam, which is why we can tell that it ought to be dealt with at long last. I thank my hon. Friend for raising the matter once again.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend speaks with greater experience than anyone in this House on the subject and on the issue of protecting the rights of workers who have suffered, over many years, grave injustice through industrial diseases and industrial accidents. He brings that wealth of experience from his time as a miner, and he continues to campaign tirelessly, and I applaud him for that. He is absolutely right that we have a duty to the victims to ensure that the matter is dealt with properly and that this Government are held to account. We need to hear answers today as to what will happen in that review, and it needs to be done quickly.

KPMG estimates that the insurance industry was given a £1.6 billion windfall when the Government ended compensation for pleural plaques. Unless the Government change their mind on mesothelioma, a similar windfall may be made available to the insurers at the expense of victims of industrial disease.

In contrast to other diseases, mesothelioma has only one outcome—loss of life. It is not trivial, and victims need help not hindrance. Most doctors say that the average lifespan from diagnosis to death is around nine months to one year. As one victim explained:

“My life has been turned upside down, and I really didn’t want to think about anything except spending my last days with my family. I worked all my life and paid all my national insurance and taxes, so this seems unfair.”

Mesothelioma victims, who often have just months to live, should not be expected to devote their energies to finding the lawyer with the best deal, yet that is what the Government expect them to do. Asbestos-related disease is not an accident. It is the result of negligence and lack of duty of care.

The claims of dying asbestos victims are never frivolous or fraudulent, but they are lumped in with road traffic accident claims that make up more than 70% of personal injury claims, for which the Government and insurance industry suggest that conditional fee agreements have been exploited. Between 2007 and 2011, there was a 6.6% reduction in employer liability cases, of which most respiratory claims are a subset. During that same period, road traffic accidents increased by 43% to nearly 800,000 cases. It is expected that mesothelioma claims will peak in about 2015, as asbestos has been eliminated from the working environment. Unscrupulous claimants may be able to fake road traffic injuries, but not mesothelioma or asbestosis. Road traffic accident problems will not be solved by punishing asbestos victims.

Mesothelioma sufferers who make a claim mainly do so because they and their families will not be at risk in terms of legal costs, which, without no win, no fee agreements, would be prohibitive. A claim may be valued at between £5,000 and £10,000, which is of great importance to the individual concerned, but which could be eaten up in costs and premiums under the Government’s plans. Mesothelioma sufferers would lose the whole of their compensation simply by not taking any action, which, as we have heard, is increasingly likely if no changes are made. Their access to lawyers would be restricted by making success fees unrecoverable from defendants, putting them at risk of paying defendants’ costs if they lose. Victims are already reluctant to claim because they have so many problems dealing with their rapid deterioration in health and trying to survive. The risk that if they lose they will have to pay such costs would be a massive additional hurdle for some of our most vulnerable people, to whom a decent, civilised society should and would guarantee support.

We should not forget that compensation is already significantly reduced for many sufferers. They must not only provide evidence of heavy exposure dating decades back, but forgo that portion of compensation where insurers cannot be traced for employers that are no longer trading. As insurance companies fight mesothelioma cases to the end, often trying to elongate the case until the victim dies, the cost of after-the-event insurance can be huge. As that will also be unrecoverable under the Government’s plans, there is no prospect of claimants being able to afford the premiums. The Government’s one-size-fits-all approach in the legislation is wrong. It may work for some personal injury claims, but is not effective in the case of complex industrial disease cases such as those involving mesothelioma.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has given a graphic description of the pain and suffering faced and experienced by mesothelioma sufferers. He is describing the impact that the legislation would have on mesothelioma sufferers if, following a review, it was fully implemented for that group. He has mentioned several times the review that the Government have offered as part of the concession that they made while the Bill was passing through Parliament. Does he agree that it is essential that that review fully engages with mesothelioma sufferers and their families and especially the support groups, such as the Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK, which has done so much to make the case on behalf of mesothelioma sufferers?

[Bill Esterson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I completely agree with him and will come shortly to what we need in the review.

For mesothelioma sufferers, unwarranted and fatal risks have been taken unknowingly, so the correct function of the legal system in such cases would be to restore victims to the position that they were in before diagnosis and to make provision for them and their families. Terminally ill and dying people will have other things on their mind than looking for a lawyer to give them a good rate, so there will not be greater competition, driving costs down, as the Minister claims. There is in fact no evidence that lawyers will reduce costs, as lawyers themselves will be less likely to take these cases because they risk not being able to recover costs if they lose or they face the dreadful prospect of having to recover those costs from their clients in a situation in which they have just lost in terrible circumstances.

Making changes to rules on compensation is no motivation or incentive for mesothelioma sufferers. One sufferer has said that

“no amount of compensation could ever compensate for my husband’s suffering and loss of life. To even contemplate this is wrong. My husband’s suffering has ended but still I have terrible images of his horrific suffering which I cannot erase…My husband was poisoned going to work. I hope this Government remembers that!”

At all stages of consideration of the legislation in this House and in the House of Lords, the fallacy of the Government’s position on industrial disease was pointed out. Twice the Lords voted on amendments to this effect:

“The changes made by sections 43, 45 and 46 of this Act do not apply in relation to proceedings which include a claim for damages for respiratory disease or illness (whether or not resulting in death) arising from industrial exposure to harmful substance.”

The Government were forced to reconsider their position and they agreed to an amendment, which brings us to the point of today’s debate. This is the amendment:

“Sections 43 and 45 and diffuse mesothelioma proceedings

(1) Sections 43 and 45 may not be brought into force in relation to proceedings relating to a claim for damages in respect of diffuse mesothelioma until the Lord Chancellor has—

a) carried out a review of the likely effect of those sections in relation to such proceedings, and

b) published a report of the conclusions of the review.”

Since then, the nature of the review, its timing, its terms of reference, how it is to be conducted and who is to be consulted have been raised several times. I have raised those matters myself with Ministers, as have the Labour Front-Bench team. When agreeing to the compromise, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) said:

“We need assurances it will be truly independent and not just a whitewash. We also need confidence there’ll be sufficient time allowed to see how the changes brought about impact on other successful claimants before rolling them out for mesothelioma sufferers.”

Given the Government’s conduct throughout, it is not surprising that we and those who represent mesothelioma sufferers, and the victims themselves, are sceptical about the Government’s promise. Today is an ideal opportunity, which I hope the Minister will take, to address the doubts of everyone who has concerns about mesothelioma. Anything less than a fully independent and thorough review of the potential effects of limiting claims will not be within the spirit or the letter of the amendments agreed to, which enabled the Government to get their legislation through. I hope that we will not hear generalities or evasions from the Minister. A clear commitment to do justice for the victims of this terrible disease is the least we can expect.

I therefore ask the Minister these questions. When will the review take place? Who will be part of the review body? What will its terms of reference be? No doubt it will include representatives of the insurance industry, but who will be the victims’ representatives? Will the review be truly independent, by which I mean independent of the insurance industry?

Concern remains that the change to no win, no fee will cut the number of people claiming and the amount being paid by insurance companies. The insurance industry has a clear financial interest in cutting down the amounts paid out. How will the Minister or his colleagues ensure that that interest is balanced by how the review is run? Will he consider an independent panel to examine mesothelioma and compensation for victims and their families? Will he and his colleagues consider the call for an employers’ liability insurance bureau following the pattern of the Motor Insurers Bureau? We must ask why there is such a facility for traffic accident victims but not for those suffering from mesothelioma or other industrial diseases.

Victims and their families want answers and protection. They have a right to that protection, given the suffering that they go through. It is time that Ministers gave answers about how that protection will be guaranteed, and soon, by this Government.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

I apologise for the absence of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), to whom this debate would normally fall, but he is serving on the Committee that is considering the Defamation Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) on securing this timely debate. He asked wholly appropriate questions and I hope to be able to give him some of the satisfaction that he seeks, and some guidance for claimants and their families on the circumstances that we are in.

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that I slightly regretted the tone of his speech. To suggest that concern about the issue is located on one side of the House and not the other is a little wide—

[Bill Esterson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Blunt]

No, because otherwise I will not have time to put the necessary points on record.

[Bill Esterson]

You made an allegation.

[Mr Blunt]

The sister of my right hon. Friend Lord McNally, the Justice Minister in the House of Lords, died of that disease, and my father died of respiratory disease. I assure the hon. Gentleman and all his hon. Friends—

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

Absolutely not. The right hon. Gentleman’s attempt to juxtapose Sir David Latham’s points with the conduct of the current Government is pretty rich, given that the problem that we inherited came from the shambles of the administration of IPPs. The Labour Government estimated that there would be 900 such sentences, but we now have about 6,500 people in the prison system on IPPs, more than half of them beyond tariff. That presents the Parole Board with a huge problem, which his party’s Administration did not address in delivering its resources until far too late. The current Administration are now gripping all of that.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

2. What progress he has made on reforming no win, no fee arrangements.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)]

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 received Royal Assent on 1 May. Part 2 of the Act contains provisions that will fundamentally reform no win, no fee agreements to make them fairer between claimants and defendants. The changes will come into effect in April 2013, and we will set out more details about their implementation in due course.

[Bill Esterson]

The Government agreed to review no win, no fee arrangements for victims of mesothelioma and their families, possibly just to get the Bill through the House of Lords. Mesothelioma is a terrible disease, and everybody who suffers from it dies a terrible death. What will the Minister do to ensure that victims and their families are properly protected, in light of the review?

[Mr Djanogly]

It is true to say that the issue was heavily debated during the passage of the Bill. I am pleased to note that all parties in the House reached an agreed way forward. The Government are therefore committed to action on mesothelioma, and various proposals about the claims process are being considered. I am sure the House will understand that it would be inappropriate to draw up the terms of reference now for a review that will not take place for some time, but we will share details of the review process in due course.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

It would be reckless of me to try off the cuff to make a tight definition of a point of law. It is about a situation where a particular question arises out of the interpretation of a regulation and there is no clear and binding precedent for exactly what the law should be when it comes to applying it to the set of facts involved, and it is then up to the tribunal judge to decide. Following the concessions that I have introduced about upper tribunal and Court of Appeal cases, the judge will certify that a point of law is involved in a case because he thinks that it is one in which the guidance of the upper tribunal or the Court of Appeal is required on what exactly the law will say that it means. That is what is meant by a point of law. We have made considerable concessions. No one is arguing about the vulnerability of groups of people who are arguing about their welfare benefits. The Bill is about how much money the taxpayer pays to how many lawyers. We are trying to concentrate on spending that money on paying lawyers for cases in which a lawyer is required to sort out a welfare benefit dispute. That is the basis on which our amendments were produced.

Let me turn finally, and as briefly as I can, to clinical negligence and legal services for children. That has been debated throughout the passage of the Bill in this House and in another place. We have listened carefully to the concerns that have been raised about the impacts of these reforms on children. I can again assure the House that the provisions in the Bill will safeguard the vast majority of the spend on cases involving children, because we have covered all the most serious cases of clinical negligence—about 96%.

I remind people that the underlying problem in the tricky area of clinical negligence cases is that all the money that we spend on compensation, legal advice, expert witnesses and so on comes out of the budget of the national health service. That now takes up a proportion of the NHS budget of a kind that I would never have contemplated all those years ago when I was a Health Minister struggling with what I thought were difficult budgets. The more one allows to be taken out of the budget for lawyers and expert witnesses in claims for compensation, the more one cannot ignore the impact that that is having on what is available for patient spend. There is no doubt that this has been a bit of a growth industry in recent years, particularly since the changes to the no win, no fee arrangements about 10 years ago. There has been an increase of 50% or so in the number of claims in the past five or six years. The last annual report of the NHS Litigation Authority estimated that the unfunded liabilities for clinical negligence claims totalled £16.8 billion, which is a cool doubling of the figure since 2006.

The bills paid to the lawyers of criminal negligence claimants more than doubled from £83 million in 2006-07 to £195 million in 2010-11. The damages paid to claimants have gone up somewhat more slowly, but the lawyers’ bills have increased substantially. One reason for that is that the fees paid to and costs incurred by the lawyers and expert witnesses acting for the plaintiffs are about three or four times as much as the Litigation Authority, as the defendant, pays for its lawyers and expert witnesses. The costs and the claims are rising exponentially. Although this is an area that we should approach with care, the clinical negligence industry has been doing well over recent years, and that has been funded entirely by budgets that would otherwise be available for patient care.

Having given that somewhat stark background, I will turn to Lords amendment 171, which seeks to bring all such cases back into the scope of legal aid when a child is a party. In our opinion, that would be unnecessary and wasteful. As I have said, under our plans, the overwhelming majority of the existing support for children will continue. For the record, that includes child protection cases, civil cases concerning the abuse of a child, special educational needs cases, and legal aid for children who are made parties to private family proceedings.

In addition, we have made funding available in the final set of amendments under consideration in this group for cases of clinical negligence involving claims for babies who suffer brain injury at or around the point of birth. I state categorically that as a result of the Government’s Lords amendment 216, any baby who, through clinical negligence, suffers brain damage during childbirth, resulting in severe disability, will receive legal aid. The amendment provides legal aid for clinical negligence claims for babies who suffer brain injury during pregnancy, at birth or in the immediate post-natal period, leading to a lifetime of care needs. I also make it clear that if a baby were to be injured in an operation, say at six months, legal aid would be available through the exceptional funding scheme, where necessary, to ensure the protection of the individual’s right to legal aid under the European convention on human rights.

When we introduced the Bill, we believed that we had covered all those cases through the exceptional funding scheme. Doubts were expressed continually in this House and in another place about that, so we now have this set of amendments to put it beyond doubt in the Bill.

By contrast, we cannot support Lords amendment 172, as I have said. That amendment would provide public funding for the remaining minority of medical negligence claims with child claimants, despite the fact that many of them are relatively simple, do not involve lengthy and detailed investigations of the kind that we are trying to catch in Lords amendment 216, and are suitable for funding through a conditional fee agreement in exactly the same way as for adults. In line with the principles that underpin the Bill, the state should not fund cases that can be provided for by alternative means.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Justice Secretary has moved on from Lords amendment 171. I am concerned about children in care and care leavers, who are among the most vulnerable children in our society and whose life chances are badly affected by their situation. There is a grave risk that children in care and care leavers will be massively over-represented in the relatively small number of people who will be excluded under the Government’s proposals. If that happens, it will seriously affect the life chances of a group of children who are already very vulnerable and who often do not have adults to advocate for them.

[Mr Clarke]

That is an interesting argument. I do not dismiss it, but I do not know of any evidence to support it. However, as I have said, the Bill covers serious cases involving children.

--- Later in debate ---

This is a Government whose own “Positive for Youth” paper commits them to providing additional support for vulnerable children and young people; a Government whose Minister for children—the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather)—said that she would interpret all new laws through the UN convention on the rights of the child, which clearly states that advice for children on legal issues is a must; and a Government whose minority partner’s current youth policy has, as its first point, a commitment to improve young people’s access to legal advice. We will seek to divide the House on the Government’s appalling decision to oppose Lords amendment 171.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent point about the Government’s claimed support for young people. She could add that they have said that they will speed up the court process for adoption, which has been an absolute disgrace for far too long. This attack on vulnerable young people—in particular, children in care—will set back the cause of those people, who have the weakest life chances of pretty much any group in this society.

[Mrs Chapman]

My hon. Friend speaks with considerable personal experience of this issue, and I take what he has to say extremely seriously.

Finally, were there time, and had today not been so ridiculously compressed, we would have also dealt with Lords amendment 170, tabled by Lord Lloyd of Berwick. It is a just and economically intelligent amendment. It is to the Government’s shame that they have not accepted its minor expense, which would help so many people who have suffered greatly through clinical negligence.