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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham), whose assiduous campaigning over many years on the issue of asbestosis and associated diseases has played a large part in the measures that we are considering. That is a tribute to his campaigning, and that of many other Members, on what is of course an extremely important issue. I also thank my hon. Friend for his contributions in Committee. I entirely understand the strength of feeling that was evident in the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North (Jim Sheridan) and for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). For Members representing areas where many people were employed for a long time in industries that led to asbestos exposure, the effect has been devastating. They are absolutely right to pursue the matter and raise it in the House now and on other occasions. It is a crucial issue for many of their constituents and their families, and I also understand the continuing concern and worry that surround it. Like the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), I have constituents with pleural plaques, although there are not many asbestos-based industries in my constituency. I have therefore encountered the same issues. I therefore understand the concern, as put to me by them as well as by parliamentary colleagues speaking for many more affected constituents. It should be said that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone has this opportunity to introduce his new clause precisely because we are at last legislating to bring about speedy and significant compensation payments for mesothelioma victims, and he and other Members have rightly acknowledged that that is an important step forward. I understand, however, why he wants to raise the issue of pleural plaques. Many Members are concerned about the recent decision in the House of Lords case of Rothwell v. Chemical and Insulating Company Ltd and conjoined cases on the civil law in relation to pleural plaques. The House of Lords thoroughly considered the issue on the basis of all the evidence put before it and reached a unanimous decision that pleural plaques do not constitute actionable or compensatable damage. That decision confirms that if a person with pleural plaques goes on to develop any recognised disease in the future they would have a claim in relation to the disease, because pleural plaques are in that sense an indicator of what can happen—as, sadly, we know—but does not in all cases inevitably happen. The House of Lords decision is based on two fundamental principles of the law of negligence: first, that compensation in relation to negligence can be payable only where there is actual damage, and secondly that compensation is not payable simply for the risk or worry that something might happen in the future. Overturning those fundamental principles for pleural plaques would create uncertainty in the law and could lead to compensation claims being made much more widely for the risk of an illness occurring or for worry that something might happen—for example, from the effects of passive smoking in the workplace. That would considerably increase the level of litigation and the possibility of weak or spurious claims, and could have damaging effects on both business and the economy.