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Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

My Lords, first, I welcome the Minister’s statement this afternoon in respect of these regulations. I thank him for the manner in which he delivered them, the understanding with which he delivered them and, more importantly, the way in which he has supported what has been for many people an almost lifelong campaign to ensure that we bring some retribution for the damage caused to so many members of our society by diseases at work. For me, pneumoconiosis is almost a household name. It became the natural word that would roll off your tongue, especially recently. Visiting constituents and seeing men sitting in the corner of their homes with an oxygen bottle alongside them, the last vestige of their survival as individuals, was a frightening and disgraceful comment upon the nature of our industrial landscape of many years ago. For many of us, it is ingrained within us to see the way those people have been dealt with in such a cruel way by these diseases. As the Minister pointed out, we have not yet seen the peak of these diseases because, while the industrial heritage may have moved away, the diseases are still firmly implanted within the bodies of those people working within those industries. I welcome the fact that these regulations are being dealt with today and that the Minister has chosen—there is no obligation on the Government to bring forward these regulations—to follow the current practice of uprating on a yearly basis. There are a number of short questions that I would like to place before the Minister. The first concerns dependants, who have been referred to earlier. Will my noble friend tell us the effect on the gap as a result of the changes we are seeing today? With more and more of these sufferers dying as we reach the peak, the dependants will be becoming more and more dependent upon the payments that are made to them. I wonder whether we have some feel for the direction of travel on that gap at this time. Is there any prospect in future of dealing much more with the dependants? For very tragic reasons, that is where we are going to be ending up with this disease. My second question concerns the issue of tracking down the employment and the vestiges of the employers. Does the Minister have any knowledge of the split between those who have worked for public sector bodies—in the area where I reside the National Coal Board was probably the biggest problem—and the private sector employers around the country in both the coal and asbestos areas of industry? No matter how often we come forward with compensation schemes and how much work is done on this matter, and although the changes that have been brought about bring comfort to people, nothing can alter the fact that many in our society have died, and are dying, as a result of industrially related diseases. It is pleasing to note that we have moved on so far in understanding such diseases and what happens in the workplace, and in protecting people. Let us hope that we do not have to introduce any other scheme of this nature in the future.