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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My hon. Friend the Minister will know that under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers Compensation) Act 1979, there are two lists of payments. One refers to live claimants and the other to dependants. It is worth looking at the reasons that have been given historically for the considerable difference in payments to live claimants and to dependants. When the issue was first raised, civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions advised Ministers that the difference in payments had arisen because of the need to keep in step with the common law. That, however, proved not to be the case. In common law the payment made to a dependant is the same as would have been made to the live claimant. I am told that two other reasons were given. One was that the difference in payments was designed to keep in step with the miners pneumoconiosis scheme of 1974. Again, the miners scheme pays exactly the same to a dependant as to a live claimant. Finally, it was said that under the 1979 Act, dependants get an additional payment of £2,392 where the death is the result of mesothelioma, but that still leaves a wide difference. I refer the Minister to the example of a person aged 60. Under the 1979 Act the live claimant would receive £31,903, whereas the dependency payment is just £9,295 plus £2,392, making a total of £11,687. That is a wide gap. I am aware that the payments in the first instance will be made from the fund. The fund will gradually increase to payments equal to those made under the 1979 Act. Amendment No. 15 calls for precisely the same payments to be made, but perhaps the Minister would consider a graduated approach. There will be a graduated approach in any event as the fund grows, so that payments can be made that are equal to those under the 1979 Act. Perhaps we could extend the principle of graduated payments so that over a number of years payments to dependants would achieve equality with payments to live claimants. On amendment No. 16, it has always been a principle that we protect the general damage element—the element that covers pain and suffering. Payments under the 1979 Act are not specified in terms of their heads of damages. Clause 49(3)(b) allows for the lump sum to be recovered to nil. As I said earlier, recovering that amount rather than leaving it as a windfall to the insurance company is a creative way forward that should be welcomed. I want to see the fund increase gradually so that the level of payment equals that provided by the 1979 scheme, but I also want to protect the general damage element. Amendment No. 16 provides a way of doing that, which the Minister may be prepared to consider. It allows the lump sum to be referred to in terms of three categories—earnings lost, the cost of care incurred by the claimant, and loss of mobility during the relevant period—and to be reclaimed to nil. It therefore protects the element of general damages. Let me read out what my right hon. and learned Friend the current Leader of the House said in 1997. At that time, the Conservative Government used the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) Act 1997 to ring-fence general damages. Politicians of all parties supported that provision. Leading for the Opposition on Second Reading, my right hon. and learned Friend stated:"““any sum awarded in compensation for pain and suffering should rightly belong to the individual who has suffered and should not be clawed back by social security.””—[Official Report, 25 February 1997; Vol. 291, c. 175.]" The principle was right and just then, and it remains so today. Mesothelioma in particular is an agonising and terminal disease, and if its victims lost out on their rightful amount of compensation for their pain and suffering, that would be a doubly cruel blow. My right hon. and learned Friend made the point that we need to ring-fence the general damage element, and my amendment No. 16 would allow that to be done. It would allow the Government to claim back to nil, but as the sum would be referred to under certain heads of damages, the principle of ring-fencing general damages would remain sacrosanct. I hope that the Minister will take that on board. He may not like the drafting of the amendment and may want it to be redrafted. However, given that it maintains the principle of retaining general damages while allowing for the recovery to nil to take place, he might wish to think about taking it on board.