Lord Mann (Lab)

My Lords, I wish to make a couple of remarks in relation to these statutory instruments. It is a long time since the pneumoconiosis compensation schemes were brought in—so long that a photo that I was shown on Friday of a very youthful now Minister was remarkably recognisable, but not because of the length of time that has transpired. In my very first case as a Member of Parliament, at 10 in the evening on my very first day, I went to meet someone who was dying that night of mesothelioma. It was, I suppose, rewarding to be able to help push through the changes and improvements that were made a few years later. I have two points to make. The first is that we call these social security payments, but they are social society—industrial disease—payments. Governments—and, therefore, this Government—are missing a trick. When we talk about the benefits bill, we should extract compensation for industrial disease as a separate element. That is not a benefit; it is something that pays people for the difficulties—with mesothelioma leading to death— caused by exposure that should never have happened. The fact is that there are still cases. Agriculture is a good example of where not all asbestos has been cleared out. Some industries were quicker and better organised than others. There are still schools with asbestos tucked away in all corners. The people who were working in the collieries, shipbuilding, foundries, the baking industry and others were having to breathe in this stuff. There were sometimes asbestos gloves that they were using routinely as part of their work—then they struggled to breathe in later life. Compensation is not a benefit; it is a right. That should be extracted out and separately categorised in the statistics, so the taxpayer can see the cost of negligence by multiple employers, including—and often particularly—government over many decades. The second point is more practical. I have been in Parliament since 2001, in one House or other, and we have had Government after Government all repeatedly talking about saving red tape and bureaucracy. I have a proposal on red tape on bureaucracy. Why are we wasting taxpayers’ money every year—on the time, involvement and work—to update something that could be updated by a little change to legislation automatically? There is no controversy in the idea that there is more accountability for diseases that are now recognised across the House as a problem, a danger and a legacy that needs to be addressed. Why are we wasting any money and time, rather than having an automatic annual increase? I put to the Minister that this would be a small but appropriate removal of red tape and bureaucracy. While it is a minor saving to the taxpayer, the principle of it seems nevertheless to be an appropriate one. I see no sufferer from these scourges objecting to an automatic increase every year.