My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendments on this issue. I first became aware of this terrible disease shortly after I was elected as the Member of Parliament for Swindon North. A man came to my surgery in the exact circumstances that my noble friend has described. He was absolutely distraught because his wife had just died from this terrible disease, which she had contracted from washing his clothes. Every day, he came back from the railway works in Swindon and gave his work clothes to his wife. She washed them and, as a result, she died from this disease. It seems completely wrong, as a matter of natural justice, that people in these circumstances should be denied any access to justice under the terms of this Bill.
Like my noble friend, I hope that the Minister will surprise us pleasantly by accepting these amendments, although I fear that we may be disappointed. If we are disappointed and the Minister relies—as I understand he may well be advised to do—on the dangers of creating a precedent by accepting these amendments, I hope that he will be able to say in exactly what circumstances he thinks such a precedent will be created. Given the very particular nature of this disease, its particular virulence and the very particular way in which it is contracted, can he say precisely what precedents he thinks will be created by accepting my noble friend’s amendments?
In the mean time, I hope that the Minister will at least agree to look again at these amendments, which seem to be absolutely consistent with the basic principles of natural justice, and I very much hope that they will find their way into this Bill in one way or another.