My Lords, the sole purpose of this amendment is to make sure that we do not lose track of the very important but parallel issue of asbestosis that affects members of the fighting services. I remind noble Lords of the amendments made some six years ago by the former Government that were very much against the interests of former officers and servicemen, particularly in the Royal Navy. There was a very bad record of asbestos-related illness, particularly on ships such as HMS “Furious”, HMS “Albion” and, above all, the Royal Yacht “Britannia”, which was a floating death-trap.
The unfortunate consequences of the amendments made six years ago were that the amount of compensation one was entitled to was reduced very drastically; in addition, the period of claim was limited so severely that it could not possibly allow for the inevitable eventual development of the disease and the justification for a claim. Armed Forces people have been very poorly treated in this and although we are talking here of a different branch of asbestosis, I remind your Lordships that in the insurance world they would not make that distinction. Nobody ever wrote a policy for mesothelioma on its own any more than they wrote one for asbestosis without embracing the generality of it. This is an important factor that has sometimes been forgotten in this debate.
In the matter of the Armed Forces, these people have been left exposed—to a greater or lesser degree—to all the consequences we have been talking about that are associated with this disease. They are going to be somewhat perplexed when they find out that the Government have gone out of their way to pass this splendid Bill to help sufferers of a different form of asbestosis while doing nothing whatever to amend the drastic reductions made six years ago to the terms available to servicemen.
I was very grateful for a joint meeting between the Minister’s department and the MoD, from which I came away with the great expectation that there would be a thorough analysis of data of the actual exposure and the number of cases concerned, and that this would open the way for some sort of parallel accommodation to be agreed. There was no question of dipping into this Bill’s pot to pass money over but there was the suggestion of perhaps a separate pot being arrived at by the Ministry of Defence, which could help to close the gap between the have-nots of the Armed Forces and the haves who will benefit from this Bill.
The reason for this amendment is that, unfortunately, the MoD has not provided the expected data. I talked to the noble Lord, Lord West, about this matter earlier and he showed a keen interest. He was an officer on one of the ships that was greatly affected and had the
responsibility of overseeing the engine room replenishment of one. He therefore regards himself as a prime candidate for the condition in time. We have not had those data and it looks as if it is the Navy that has been remiss; yet it is the Navy about which we are most concerned.
May I please send a message via the Minister to ask the Navy to stir its stumps a bit and do something about getting those data to us? We need them. The idea would then be to see what can be done to put together a programme that will not result in a Daily Mail headline such as, “Callous Government plan for the many and abandon their heroes of the seas”. We do not want that, and it would be unfair anyway. We need a commitment to do something for Armed Forces people who have had a very bad deal for the past six years. We need to do something to put it right.
I have tabled this amendment in order to keep people interested in the possibility of having that debate, which we cannot do until we know the data and what can be done. I do not wish to press this amendment tonight but I certainly wish to roll it over to Third Reading, in exactly the same wording, in the hope that by then we will have a more positive approach to how we can arrive at a solution to give some parallel improvement to the terms available to former members of the fighting services. On that basis, I urge the Minister to do whatever he can to stimulate that dialogue. I would be happy to participate in any stage of it.