Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

The rates payable under the 1979 Act scheme are based on the level of the disablement assessment and age of the sufferer when the disease is diagnosed. The highest amounts are paid to those diagnosed at an early age and with the highest level of disablement. All payments for diffuse mesothelioma under the 1979 Act scheme are automatically made at the 100% disablement rate, the highest rate of payment, reflecting the serious nature of the disease. Similarly, all payments for this condition under the 2008 scheme are made at the 100% disablement rate and based on age, with the highest payments going to the youngest people with the disease. In the last full year for which data is available—April 2019 to March 2020—3,220 awards were paid under the 1979 Act, totalling £42.7 million, and 450 people received payments under the 2008 Act, totalling £9.7m million. Overall, 3,670 awards were made across both schemes in 2019-20 and expenditure was £52.4 million.

I am keen to address the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on sufferers of pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma. While this uprating debate is an annual event, this has been a far from normal year. We took the difficult decision at the outset of the pandemic to temporarily suspend all face-to-face health and disability assessments, including for the industrial injuries disablement benefit, to protect the health of claimants and staff. We have continued to process industrial injuries disablement claims for those individuals with terminal illnesses. Therefore, throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and the suspension of face-to-face interviews, service centres have continued to pay the D3, mesothelioma, D8, lung cancer with asbestosis, and D8a, lung cancer in the absence of asbestosis cases, for workers’ compensation.

In addition, since November 2020, we have been assessing claims for D1, pneumoconiosis, including silicosis and asbestosis, and D9, unilateral or bilateral diffuse pleural thickening, prescribed diseases, so that claimants can start to receive the payments they deserve. While we expect the number of people diagnosed with mesothelioma to begin to fall in the coming years, the Government are well aware that there will still be many people who develop this and other respiratory diseases. That is why we are committed to working with our agencies and arm’s-length bodies to improve the lives of those with respiratory diseases.

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented major challenges for all healthcare systems. The NHS has published a cancer service recovery plan, which has been developed with the Cancer Recovery Taskforce. The plan aims to prioritise long-term plan commitments, which identified respiratory disease as a clinical priority and will support recovery, including the delivery of targeted lung health checks. We know that research is crucial in the fight against cancers such as mesothelioma. That is why the Department of Health and Social Care invests £1 billion per year in health research through the National Institute for Health Research.

I am aware that people suffering from occupational lung diseases are likely to be at higher risk of complications resulting from Covid-19, at what continues to be a distressing time for sufferers of the diseases that we are discussing today. The Department of Health and Social Care is following advice from independent experts on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on which groups of people to prioritise for Covid-19 vaccines. They advise that the immediate priority should be to prevent deaths and protect health and care staff, with old age deemed the single biggest factor in determining mortality. The JCVI has decided that it is safe for people with long-term conditions and that people who are high-risk should be prioritised to get the vaccine first.

Returning to these important regulations, I am sure we all agree that, while no amount of money can ever compensate individuals and families for the suffering and loss caused by diffuse mesothelioma and the other dust-related diseases covered by the 1979 Act scheme, those who have them rightly deserve the financial compensation that these schemes can offer. I commend the increase of the payment scales for these schemes and ask approval to implement them. I beg to move.