---

Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

Once again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) for his contributions. I thank him for the amendments, which would allow for a dependant to be paid the same amount, by way of a lump sum payment, as a sufferer with mesothelioma and which would restrict recoveries of lump sum payments from civil damages to particular heads of damages—namely loss of earnings, the cost of care and loss of mobility. As my hon. Friend knows, we are funding the scheme from compensation recovery and it will be self-financing. Bearing in mind the limited funds available, we consider that it is much fairer to pay sufferers as quickly as possible in life and pay them as much as can be afforded from compensation recovery. Making payments to dependants at the same rate as payments to sufferers in the new scheme would cost more and we would have to reduce the estimated amount that we are paying sufferers by about £1,000 in the first two years. That would mean that dependants paid under the new mesothelioma scheme would receive more, on average, than dependants paid under the 1979 Act for mesothelioma. That would be unfair, as I think that my hon. Friend will agree. We would have to pay all dependants of those with mesothelioma, including claims made under the 1979 Act, from the new scheme so that they received the higher amount. If we did that, the scheme could not be self-financing, as intended. I turn to the amendment about heads of damages. Unlike social security benefits, these lump sum payments are not intended to meet a specific need—rather, they are a payment made instead of, or in advance of, civil damages. It is therefore right to recover them from any part of a later award of civil damages. The amendment would mean instead that some of the lump sum payments could not be recovered in full. That would have two effects: the person would be over-compensated for their loss; and, unfortunately, the amount available to fund the scheme would consequently be reduced. That would reduce the amounts available to other claimants and erode the long-standing principle that a person should not be compensated twice for the same damage. I should like to reassure my hon. Friend that the current proposals, which allow for lump sums to be recovered from any element of a compensation award, including awards made for pain and suffering, will not disadvantage the sufferer or their family in any way. They will still receive the full amount of compensation they are entitled to—it is merely that they will not be able to receive it twice. I know that he is concerned about the precedent that that sets, and I can confirm that we have no intention of recovering social security benefits paid for income replacement mobility needs or care needs from general damages. Given the limited funds available, the Government's current priority is to pay as much as possible to sufferers in life rather than increase awards to dependants. We also need to maximise the amounts that we receive in compensation recovery. As sufferers or their families will not lose out overall if we recover from all heads of damages, I urge my hon. Friend to withdraw the amendment.