Compensation fight for asbestos victims

8:30am Sunday 20th July 2008

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CAMPAIGNERS from York are backing a rearguard battle to block controversial plans which could prevent asbestos victims suing employers for damages.

The Government is proposing to remove legal requirements for companies to retain records of liability insurance policies.

Ministers claim the cost of retaining policies is a burden on business and say the law is not effectively enforced by the Health and Safety Executive.

But the York Asbestos Support Group fears that as a result, workers affected by slow-developing asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma could be unable to trace the insurers of their employers and bring a claim.

Scores of former York carriageworks employees and workers from other factories have fallen victim to mesothelioma over the years. In many cases, they fell ill up to four decades after they had been exposed to deadly asbestos dust in the workplace.

Now backbench MPs have signed an early day motion expressing “profound disappointment” at the Government’s decision to repeal regulations requiring employers’ liability compulsory insurance policies to be retained for 40 years.

The MPs say they are “deeply concerned at the impact this will have on workers suffering from industrial diseases, such as mesothelioma, who will be unable to obtain legally awarded damages because they will not be able to trace their employers’ liability insurance policies.”

They want the Government to set up a central electronic database for the compulsory recording of all employers’ liability insurance policies. Kim Daniells, who founded and chairs the York support group, said York MP Hugh Bayley had signed the motion following lobbying by the group.

She said: “This is of concern to the group, not because it will tend to affect people affected currently by mesothelioma but because it could affect people in 20 or 30 years’ time, who may develop the disease through exposure to asbestos dust at the moment.”

She said the legislation had not been enforced properly but the answer had not been to scrap it but to create a central Government database. Mr Bayley said he had signed the motion because he was concerned about the proposed changes, and had been in touch with the Department of Work and Pensions to ask how it was going to ensure people would still be able to claim damages in years to come.

He added that he had dealt over the years with a number of cases of former York Carriageworks employees who had suffered from mesothelioma as a result of exposure to asbestos, and had taken action when British Rail was privatised to ensure such people remained able to continue claiming damages.

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