Mesothelioma Bill [HL]

My Lords, Amendment 16 requires an independent review of average civil compensation for mesotheli...

My Lords, before I address the noble Lord’s amendment, I shall clarify a couple of points that we...

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for responding to the Committee on this point, which was ...

To follow up on that, was the Minister referring to claims or successful claims?

I am not sure whether they are claims or successful claims. My understanding is that there have b...

The noble Lord is generous with his time. I listened carefully to his words. If they were a direc...

Following that point, I will quote from a House of Commons document, Mesothelioma: Civil Court Cl...

My Lords, I am grateful for those observations. I am sure that we will have a chance to discuss t...

Before the Minister moves on, is he not going to respond to the point made by his noble friend, w...

My Lords, we could spend all day on one point. I am just trying to get a response on the record. ...

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for taking the trouble to look into that and for the gracious wa...

In the interests of time, the best thing I can do today is to accept the fantastic offer of futur...

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clarifications on some of our earlier debates. I am sure w...

That is a good point. I should have made it in response. Just to make it absolutely clear, the le...

I am grateful for that, and I understood that position. I guess that the insurer in that respect ...

There are two points there. We have not determined the £2,000. We are looking at those two figure...

I look forward to the final figures when they do come out. Can the Minister assure us that we wil...

With the smallest of caveats, I am most hopeful that I will get that information to the noble Lor...

I am most grateful to the Minister, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Moved by

Lord Howarth of Newport

17: Clause 4, page 3, line 10, at end insert—

...

My Lords, when the Minister introduced the Bill on Second Reading, he rather gave us to understan...

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for raising these issues, because it giv...

My Lords, we have Amendment 42 in this group, about which I can be brief. Before speaking to it, ...

My Lords, these amendments look to allow for legal fees to be paid by the scheme without limit. A...

That takes care of the disincentive to bring claims to the First-tier Tribunal that have no merit...

It is important to highlight that higher rights are not required in the First-tier Tribunal or th...

Could the Minister deal with the point about proceedings that could arise under Clause 10? These ...

We will deal with this issue in some detail in debate on a later amendment. In practice, where th...

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord German, and to my noble friend Lord McKenzie...

Let me apologise for any misrepresentation that I may have inadvertently made.

The Minister is so engaging as he apologises that of course it would be churlish if I did not imm...

Moved by

Lord McKenzie of Luton

19: Clause 4, page 3, line 11, leave out subsection (...

My Lords, I should explain that this amendment was tabled before we had a chance to peruse a draf...

My Lords, I rise to reinforce the points made by my noble friend Lord McKenzie. It is easier to u...

My Lords, I fully recognise that Amendment 19 is a probing amendment that would remove the possib...

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend why, if the only circumstances in which conditions are to be im...

I take on board my noble friend’s point. As I said, I shall look at this and the other points mad...

I am sure that the Minister will do this, but perhaps I may check that he will consider whether i...

I will look at that, but I remind noble Lords that primary legislation sets a framework, and what...

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and his consideration of this matter. I am not su...

My Lords, I must withdraw that completely. I meant to say that we are considering very deeply the...

I am most grateful to the Minister for his further clarification. Of course, this was a probing a...

Moved by

Lord Howarth of Newport

20: Clause 4, page 3, line 17, at end insert—

...

My Lords, the amendments in this relatively large group are intended to enable us to probe the Go...

My Lords, I am strongly in favour of the principle that informs the amendments in this group, whi...

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Howarth opened up an important area for consideration, and was str...

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for these amendments. Clearly, the general intention behind them...

My Lords, would a person be advised not to submit a claim where it appears that the amount of the...

That is clearly the theoretical position. The reality is that, of course, in practical terms, the...

I think that the Minister is about to wind up his remarks. Can he confirm that if one is dealing ...

I shall speak slightly off the cuff. We do not look backwards to those payments anyway, so only t...

I am most grateful.

These amendments do not achieve their aim in many cases, and they could have some deeply unintend...

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord McKenzie of Luton, an...

Moved by

Lord McKenzie of Luton

29: Clause 7, page 4, line 11, after “may” insert “, ...

My Lords, in moving Amendment 29, I will also speak to Amendment 30. Clause 7 provides for the Se...

My Lords—

If the noble Lord will curb his enthusiasm for just a moment, the amendment proposed states:

I am grateful for being curbed. I support the amendment. It will lead on to Amendment 32, which a...

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their amendments. I assure them that all dilige...

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, f...

Perhaps I may deal with it under the next amendment.

That is fine. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Moved by

Lord McKenzie of Luton

32: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause—<...

My Lords, this amendment calls for the establishment of an oversight committee to monitor, review...

My Lords, in the interests of time, I thought I might pre-empt the noble Lord on this, although I...

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, must beg to move the amendment, and I will then put the question. ...

I beg to move.

I apologise to the noble Lord for cutting him off in full flow. I understand that the level of in...

I will make one small comment about subsection (2) of the new clause proposed by Amendment 32: th...

I am most grateful for that point. We shall bear it in mind.

They say in the world of chess, as I have quoted before, that a threat is more dangerous than the...

I will just add my support for this, particularly for subsection 2(a) of the proposed new clause ...

My Lords, I think the Minister said in replying to the previous amendment that when we came to th...

To answer in just one minute: I will take the whole package and look at it. That is what I am com...

My Lords, just before I formally withdraw the amendment, I should say that I am grateful to the n...

I can assure noble Lords that I will enter negotiations with them without any preconditions. Basi...

I am grateful to the Minister and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Moved by

Lord McKenzie of Luton

33: Clause 10, page 6, line 13, leave out “Where a pa...

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendments 34, 35 and 44 in this group. Clause 10 gives the power ...

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for these amendments. Amendments 33...

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. As I think I said in moving the amendment, I had already...

Moved by

Lord McKenzie of Luton

36: Schedule 2, page 15, line 35, after “no” insert “...

My Lords, I hope we can be brief with this. In moving Amendment 36, I will speak to the other ame...

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of this amendment for the same reason: to try to get cl...

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for these amendments, which I understand are probin...

My Lords, I am again grateful to the Minister. I accept from what he has said that there is a rou...

Moved by

Lord Howarth of Newport

40: Clause 13, page 7, line 10, after “Scheme” inser...

My Lords, Amendments 40 and 45 in this group relate to the possibility of additional schemes bein...

My Lords, the problems of the Navy in this regard persist for that service. An MoD meeting has be...

I regret that I am not invited.

I think it will be harder to make progress without the Minister. It seems to me that three very s...

My Lords, briefly, I support the two speeches which have just been made, not least because I agre...

Perhaps I may ask the Minister if he will have a meeting with me after I have been to the MoD so ...

My Lords, our Amendment 46 is in this group. I will say at the start that I thoroughly support th...

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for these amendments, and clearly I am sympathetic to the desire...

Can we have an indication by paw of who will be attending the meeting?

The paw has been raised. I am more than happy to hold a meeting with the noble Lord after that me...

The noble Lord is taking a big risk in sending the best looking member of his staff to the Navy.<...

The noble Lord must be very careful about making remarks like that. I think that we should strike...

Before the Minister goes any further on that, would he accept that there is a parallel between pe...

My intelligence on this comes from my noble friend Lord James, who told me that the estimate was ...

The provisional estimate is up to 300 dead already and 180 contaminated. However, the figure we n...

The noble Lord has put that on the record. Clearly, there is a difference in the sense that the M...

My Lords, I do not think that anybody is suggesting that we should stretch the scheme in the Bill...

Regrettably, I am not in a position to make any kind of commitment along those lines. We responde...

For the sake of accuracy, I will just correct the figures to this extent. The Navy’s figures incl...

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord McKenzie for laying out the case in his cust...

I apologise if I abused the Aunt Sally—if I did so, I did so unintentionally. I want to make abso...

If my noble friend will allow, is that a fair representation of what the Delegated Powers Committ...

Perhaps I have opened up a completely new front. I am reluctant to go into that specifically. The...

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I yield to no one in my respect for the Delega...

Moved by

Lord Howarth of Newport

43: After Clause 14, insert the following new Clause...

My Lords, the Committee will be relieved to know that this is the last amendment in my name, at l...

I might be able to ease the noble Lord’s concern on this. I believe that when the major reinsuran...

I am always disposed to defer to the noble Lord as he has a depth of knowledge on this matter tha...

My Lords, the noble Lord has tabled this amendment to require that investigations be made into th...

I am glad that the Minister sympathises with my aim in tabling this amendment. I am sorry, howeve...

Moved by

Lord McKenzie of Luton

48*: Clause 18, page 10, line 17, leave out from “giv...

My Lords, I wish to be brief and I am slightly hesitant about whether I should move the amendment...

My Lords, I think I will treat this as an extremely probing amendment, and in that spirit I am ha...

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of and response to the amendment. I beg leave ...