Published at 12:59, Wednesday, 10 February 2010

THE government is set to unveil a £70m package of help for asbestos victims – but will stop short of overturning a decision stopping all pleural plaques victims being awarded compensation.

UNION OFFICAL: Bob Pointer

In Barrow, Bob Pointer, a trade union official who helped found asbestos care group BARDS, said he will be deeply disappointed if the government has decided not to attempt overturn the House of Lords ruling which stopped people claiming for the lung scarring called pleural plaques.

Insurance firms successfully argued the condition gave no symptoms and was painless, while sufferers and trade unions said the scars caused psychological worry that those with them might later get deadly asbestos related diseases like mesothelioma.

Now following a private meeting between the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, unions and some MPs, it is thought a research centre into asbestos-linked diseases, will be proposed.

The new measures are also thought to include making insurers fund compensation for dying victims unable to rely on their employers’ insurance, and more money for sufferers of the deadly asbestos cancer mesothelioma.

MPs and unions have repeatedly called for action after the House of Lords ruling on pleural plaques compensation. Scotland overturned the ruling last year.

The announcement, expected this week, will only compensate plaques victims who had already lodged a legal case before the Law Lords banned compensation for pleural plaques in October 2007, says construction union UCATT.

Bob Pointer, secretary of the Barrow Trades Union Council, said: “If this is the case I am disappointed. I think we have been let down badly.

“Having pleural plaques can have a psychological effect which people have got to live with.

“It acknowledges that people have been exposed.”

He said insurance firms should meet their obligations under work insurance deals no matter how long ago they were made.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of UCATT, said there are £30m worth of legally-stayed pleural plaques cases, which include many cases where insurance companies would have been liable to pay compensation. Instead the government is proposing to use public funds to pay compensation.

Mr Ritchie added: “The government is intending to pay compensation, from an already severely overstretched public purse, to pleural plaques victims when it is the insurers who are liable. Why on earth are the insurers not being made to pay? The government have claimed they are looking beyond the pleural plaques issue. Instead they are abandoning the vast majority of pleural plaques victims whose health has been damaged through no fault of their own. This is the opposite of social justice, which Labour was founded on.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The House of Lords decision on pleural plaques has raised extremely complex and difficult issues. We are actively considering the full range of issues around asbestos exposure and have consulted a range of medical experts as part of that process.

“We hope to be able to publish a final response on pleural plaques as soon as possible.”

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk