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Compensation Bill [HL]

My Lords, the underlying decision in this case by the Appellate Committee is one of great interest to me, because it resulted from digging deep into a coal board case which I had lost a considerable time ago. It is a decision remarkable for the clarity of its foundations. The more recent decision, which this set of proposals is intended to deal with, is more limited in its scope. I believe that retrospection is something that normally we would not tolerate, but it has happened from time to time. Perhaps one of the most astonishing cases in which it happened was with the Burma litigation of some years ago, on which I happened to be instructed on behalf of the Government, who having lost before the Appellate Committee initiated legislation to overturn the decision. This retrospection appears to me entirely justified. Subject to the details mentioned by noble Lords, what has been proposed is eminently justified. It may be reasonably clear that, when an employer has become bankrupt or disappeared, if there was an insurance policy and the insurer was still available for a suit, the Rights Against Insurers Act would appear to give a remedy to a family under these provisions in the same way as if the employer itself was still available and solvent. I strongly sympathise with the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord who immediately preceded me. I had many cases relating to the shipbuilding industry when I was rather younger than I am today, and the conditions under which it operated were very difficult. I hope that legal jargon would in no way deprive those who worked in it of their undoubted rights.