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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I understand my hon. Friend's point, and I am glad that he acknowledges our innovative funding of the scheme. If there are developments in the future, we shall have to examine how the schemes are funded, but at least a mechanism has been established for the new scheme, which will deliver prompt payments for mesothelioma sufferers. As my hon. Friend knows, the amount of funding available from introducing compensation recovery is only just sufficient to fund the planned extension of the scheme to all mesothelioma sufferers. Trying to include other diseases in the scheme would greatly increase the administrative work and cost, and undermine the scheme's aim of providing mesothelioma patients with compensation as soon as possible. In addition, if such changes were made, the scheme would no longer be self-funding—and the self-funding element was something that my hon. Friend welcomed. I hope that I have been able to give reassurances to Members who have raised extremely important points about pleural plaques and people who, sadly, suffer from them. I hope, too, that I have been able to explain the Government's position in respect of both the court decision and an issue that may be debated in the Scottish Parliament in the near future. Given those reassurances, I hope that my hon. Friend will agree to withdraw the new clause.