Sir Stephen Timms

I am delighted to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western—for the first time, I think—and I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) for bringing this important debate to the House. She made the point that this is the first time under the current Government that we have had the opportunity to debate this issue, so I congratulate her on securing this debate. I share in the grief of all those who, like my hon. Friend, have lost somebody close to them as a consequence of exposure to asbestos. As she and others reminded us, it is still by far the biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK—it is responsible for 5,000-plus deaths per year—and many people live with the impact of asbestos-related disease. I join my hon. Friend in commending the work of the journalist Steve Boggan, who has highlighted this topic very helpfully. Hanging in my office in the House of Commons, a few yards from here, I currently have a portrait of Mavis Nye and her husband, Ray. Ray Nye became an apprentice in the Chatham dockyard in 1953 and worked there for a number of years. Asbestos was everywhere. In 1957, during his apprenticeship, he met Mavis. He refers to that encounter as “the most wonderful thing ever to enter my life”. They married, and Mavis used to launder his overalls. At some point she breathed in asbestos dust. Fifty years later, in 2009, she was diagnosed with mesothelioma. We have heard about very long latency periods. It appears that in Mavis’s case, it was 50 years before she was diagnosed. Thanks to pioneering treatment at the Royal Marsden hospital, she lived for another 14 years. She and Ray established the Mavis Nye Foundation to inspire mesothelioma victims. She was a force of nature. She sadly died in 2023, but it was her wish that her portrait should be hung in the House of Commons. In fulfilment of that wish, it hangs in my office this afternoon. It will soon be returned to Ray, but I am glad that we have been able to fulfil that wish and help celebrate the contribution of a remarkable woman—just one of the many thousands who have died as a result of earlier asbestos exposure in the last couple of years. In Britain we have a mature and well-established approach to the management of asbestos in buildings. The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and other regulators, requires duty holders to assess whether asbestos is present, what condition it is in and whether it gives rise to a risk of exposure. The duty holder must then draw up a plan to manage the risk associated with asbestos, which must include removal if it cannot be safely managed where it remains. There is an existing legal obligation for duty holders to remove degrading asbestos and to share details of asbestos in their premises with people who work regularly in a building and may potentially disturb or damage materials which contain asbestos.