SURFACE WORKERS AND THE RECOMMENDATION OF THE FORMER TRADE AND INDUSTRY SELECT COMMITTEE

Motion Text

That this House notes that the Claimants Solicitors Group estimates that there are between 3,000 and 5,000 ex-colliery surface workers who have a potential claim against the former British Coal for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and is encouraged by the Minister's response when he gave an undertaking that the DTI would give `maximum consideration to resolving the issue' of surface workers' claims; and now calls on the Department to accept the recommendation of the Trade and Industry Select Committee in the previous Parliament in their Fourteenth Report 2004-05, `Coal Health Compensation Schemes', agreed on 22nd March 2005, that a just solution would be to allow ex-surface workers to be admitted to the COPD compensation scheme.