I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North (Jim Sheridan) on initiating this debate. It is an important subject for my constituents. So prevalent is that cancer in Swindon that it is known locally as the Swindon disease, and in my surgeries over the years I have seen many cruel examples of the illness.

My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) and others drew attention to the fact that it is not only those who work in such occupations who are exposed to the disease. It can sometimes affect their families in a particularly terrible way, as wives can acquire the disease from washing the work clothes. The sense of responsibility felt by the husband who is left behind can be terrible to witness. As my hon. Friends have said, the problem will be with us for a considerable time.

For generations, those affected by this terrible disease have suffered not only the agonising consequences of living with it but the difficulty of securing fair and adequate compensation for the hazard that they endured as a result of their employment. As has been pointed out, the nature of the disease is such that any exposure to asbestos, no matter how small—just one fibre is enough—can result in the contraction of that disease.

Many of those who I see in my surgeries have worked in a number of workplaces and they could have been exposed to asbestos in each of them, but medical science is such that no one can identify which of them it is. As a result, there has been a long and complex history of legal discussion on how to apportion liability. The lawyers and the judiciary have wrestled, rightly and valiantly, with complex and difficult law, but it has created despair for the families whom we represent. Many of my constituents’ families have been riven by the consequences of litigation in trying to get some compensation for a disease that has been contracted through no fault of theirs. That is cruel and unacceptable.

When the House of Lords ruled on the Fairchild case four years ago, it seemed to provide greater certainty for litigants. It was greeted with almost universal relief. That case seemed to establish that any employer who contributed to the risk of mesothelioma would be liable in full, even though others were similarly culpable who could not be identified or perhaps could not pay damages because they were uninsured—or, more likely, had gone out of business and their insurers could not be identified. To most lay observers, that new departure in law accorded with natural justice and common sense.

The risks of asbestos have been known since at least the 1960s, so the cases emerging now are almost certainly those resulting from exposure at a time when employers knew, or should have known, of the potential risk. Although the nature of the disease makes it impossible to determine which exposure to asbestos caused the disease, it is equally impossible to exclude any employer from responsibility. The Fairchild case seemed to establish that, with such uncertainty, the burden of liability should be shared between employers and not transferred at least in part to those suffering from the disease, which had been the case hitherto.

The House of Lords decision on the Barker case, which is the main reason for today’s debate, seems to reverse that approach. It restricts the potential liability of employers and their insurers to the amount that they are individually likely to have contributed to the disease if others contributed to the chance of the disease being contracted; but, for whatever reason, they are now unable to pay up, so the victim of the disease could be denied full compensation, which they would have received under the Fairchild decision.

The House of Lords rightly drew attention to the exceptional nature of the circumstances surrounding the causation of mesothelioma. As Lord Hoffman said, it sought that the new exception created by the Fairchild case should not be allowed to swallow up the rule on liability. Few would quarrel with that. However, the heart of the issue lies in the question of fairness, which Lord Hoffmann acknowledged was why the Fairchild exception was created. In his view, the attribution of liability according to the relative degree of contribution to the chance of the disease being contracted would “smooth the roughness” of the justice to employers that a rule of joint and several liability creates.

However, in smoothing the roughness of justice to employers, the House of Lords has created a new roughness of justice for those suffering this terrible disease and their families. In effect, some of the burden created by scientific uncertainty has been transferred to the victims. If medical science cannot be precise about which exposure caused the disease, as in the case of mesothelioma, there will always be a roughness of justice. The question is who should suffer such roughness. The last in line should surely be the victims of the disease. As a result of the decision by the House of Lords, that is no longer necessarily the case. Employers and their insurers, who may be entirely responsible, may well escape full liability.

I understand that there is some learned dispute about whether the Barker case overturns the Fairchild decision, or simply refines it and clarifies some outstanding questions. What appears not to be in dispute is that, following the decision, some of those suffering from the disease will now receive less compensation than they would have done before it. Chop this up as lawyers may, that is unjust. It is rough justice for the most vulnerable and least culpable, and that is wrong.

Various approaches to righting the wrong have been suggested, some of which have been mentioned today. Many of them have great attractions. I do not intend to advocate one over another. All I seek from Ministers—I hope that the Minister will reassure all of us about this—is that they will move to put right the manifest injustice that those suffering from this disease should be denied full compensation from demonstrably culpable employers and their insurers.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): I know that my hon. Friend does not want to advocate a particular direction that the Government might move in to right this wrong. Will he listen to those who come from mining constituencies? Their experience of the miners compensation process has been that it is laborious and that it has many inequities. People do not understand why one person receives a lot more money than another when the same set of circumstances seem to be involved, and people have died still waiting for compensation. That has all been because of the laboriousness of the process, where lawyers are making a great deal of money. Will he rule out that direction for the Government?

Mr. Wills: I am happy to do so. Obviously, I have no constituency experience of that particular scheme. My hon. Friend has drawn attention to an important point that I was going to make: any remedy that Ministers bring into place—I hope that they will bring such a remedy into place—should be subject to three things. It should be extremely simple. It should be equitable, and it should be done with great speed. We simply cannot allow the uncertainty to hang over families who are already suffering enough.

The decision by the House of Lords has caused turmoil among some of my constituents. I am sure that I speak for all hon. Members in this regard. The Government must move quickly. Of course, they must get things right, but speed is important. As other hon. Members have said, some of the people suffering from the disease do not have long to live and they need the certainty that adequate compensation will be forthcoming, if not for them, at least for their families. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North made some important points, and I am sure that the Minister will take them into consideration.

When science is blind, uncertainty exists, but the costs of that uncertainty should never be paid by those least able to do so and those least responsible for doing so. Yet, in some cases, that is the consequence of the House of Lords decision. That is the wrong that I ask Ministers to put right.

For the rest of this debate: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2006-06-13a.232.0&s=speaker%3A10642#g237.1