Mr. Paddy Tipping (Sherwood): Has my hon. Friend seen a parliamentary answer from the Minister only last week which suggested a cost of £20 million in the first year, with £5 million administration costs? Does he agree that that is a small sum in the relative scale of things?

Mr. Clapham: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I have seen that parliamentary reply. It suggests that the costs of introducing the new criteria set out in the review are manageable.

I said that changing the criteria would not cost the Treasury a penny because the awards could be paid for out of the £320 million that has already gone into the Treasury's coffers from the sale of British Coal's land. By anyone's reckoning, that is money that should come back to mining communities. If that source of financing cannot be tapped, the awards could be financed from half the annual surpluses that the Government rip off from the mineworkers' pension scheme. As the people whom we are talking about are elderly, clearly the cost will diminish year on year. Therefore, that £320 million could well pay for the scheme into the future.

It is an appalling indictment of the Government that they have sat on the IIAC recommendations for nine months. In the mean time, literally hundreds of former coal miners have died of the dust and have been unable to make a claim. Neither they nor their families, who in

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I hope that the Minister can tell us that the recommendations will be implemented immediately and that they will be retrospectively applied in view of the delay that has been caused by the Government.

11.16 am

Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on securing the opportunity to debate this matter. As soon as the debate appeared on the Order Paper, I wrote to Madam Speaker asking for the opportunity to take part. This is a significant issue which involves a substantial number of my constituents as well as others in west and north Yorkshire. My colleague represents south Yorkshire and I endorse all his remarks because they apply to miners in west and north Yorkshire.

As several hon. Members want to speak, I shall keep my comments brief. I wish to put a number of questions to the Minister. If he cannot respond to them this morning, they will be on record and I hope that he will follow them up after the debate. The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council report was presented to the Secretary of State in February this year and was made public in May. It recommended two main amendments. The first was that the forced expiration volume in one second test--the FEV1 test--should be retained but amended to allow underground workers who have small lung volume to be judged according to their frame. The second was that the need for radiographic evidence of coal dust retention be removed from prescription.

Since the report was published, I have received numerous inquiries from former mineworkers in my constituency. They asked how and when the report would be implemented. I wrote to the Secretary of State giving the names of some of the individuals who had been pressing me. The response has been negative. I should like the Minister to deal with a number of issues. First, when will the recommendations be implemented? That is what everyone wants to know. If he can give some indication today, that will be a step in the right direction. Secondly, will claimants denied benefits because they failed either the FEV or the X-ray test, or both, be granted benefit automatically, or will they have to reapply when the Secretary of State agrees to implement the recommendations?

Thirdly, will the widow or any relatives be able to make a posthumous claim because their husband or father failed the FEV and X-ray tests, but has since died? Will claimants who have satisfied the FEV test but have been denied benefit because they failed the X-ray test be automatically assessed? Will any benefits due to them be paid back to the date of their previous claim, or to September 1993 if the claim was submitted within the original time limit? A substantial number of people applied in September 1993, but it took three or four months before some qualified for the examination. If we are to be fair to them, they should receive compensation from September 1993. Will that apply to posthumous claims made on behalf of a miner's family? Will those claims go back to 1993?

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We must also consider surface workers. Those of us who have worked in the mining industry are aware of miners who worked underground for perhaps 15 or 18 years, but then had to work on the surface in dusty conditions. Those men have been denied the opportunity of applying for benefit, and that is an injustice. The Minister must reconsider, because a substantial number of people who should be claiming benefit are involved.

We are told that 3,502 former mineworkers in receipt of an occupational pension have died since the report was presented to the Secretary of State. How many of those who claimed benefit were turned down because they failed the X-ray test? It would be easy to identify them. Since the Secretary of State received the report, how many appeals have been lodged on the basis that the X-ray showed no dust on the lung? The Secretary of State is sitting on a recommendation from the advisory council while people are being refused benefit because there is nothing on their X-ray. Those applicants are appealing, but that test will not now apply. How much will that cost the Department of Social Security? We have heard that there is a lack of resources to pay the benefit, but the Secretary of State's refusal to act on the recommendation is costing the Government money. However, the people who will pay most are the retired miners.

How many people have failed because of the FEV test? How many appeals have been lodged? If the Secretary of State implemented the recommendations of the report, it would solve many of the problems and many miners would not need to appeal against their assessment. We are also aware of people who--having been turned down because the X-ray did not show them to be suffering from category 1 dust--have died shortly after the X-ray and been found to have been suffering from category 3 dust, which causes pneumoconiosis. But because the regulations say that the X-ray should show category 1 dust, they have not qualified for benefit. The regulations are flawed, as the case now being pursued through the courts will reveal. In such cases, no payment has been made to the family or to the widow.

Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth): My hon. Friend will be aware that two years or more ago, some of us--including, I think, my hon. Friend--submitted evidence to the Minister that the quality and nature of the X-ray film being used did not allow a proper diagnosis to be made.

Mr. William O'Brien: That is a substantial point that we made in our evidence to the Government. A significant amount of evidence shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that an injustice is being done to many former miners.

In the 1950s, I worked at a colliery where 2,500 miners worked underground, and some 20,000 miners were working in the area at that time. Those were the numbers in the industry in the early 1950s, and--while other hon. Members will be representing some of them--few of those miners are left because they have been racked by industrial illness and injury. But for the few who remain, the recommendations must be applied immediately. Will the Minister address the points of concern that I have raised? If he cannot answer them this morning, will he ensure that we receive written answers so that people can be made aware of the Minister's response to the concerns of former miners?

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11.26 am

Mr. Eric Clarke (Midlothian): I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on obtaining this debate. I think that I am qualified to take part as I am an ex-miner and for 12 years was general secretary of the Scottish area of the National Union of Mineworkers. I also represent a mining constituency, where many people suffer from the diseases in question.

As only 5 to 6 per cent. of Scottish claimants were successful in obtaining a pension under chronic bronchitis and emphysema prescribed disease D12, I was delighted to hear that the Government's advisory committee had agreed to recommend changes in the qualifying method. For example, the recommendation to drop category 1, pneumoconiosis, was a breakthrough. However, the Minister has still not embraced that change, although he received the recommendations in February and we are now in November. Are the Government waiting for most of the claimants to die so as to save the Exchequer money? As the economist John Maynard Keynes once said,

"In the long run, we are all dead."

I wonder how the Minister can sleep at night, knowing that he is a party to such a grievous injustice. But it is never too late: even Ebenezer Scrooge had a dramatic change of heart. I appeal to the Minister in the run-up to Christmas to change his attitude and shed some ray of hope on those affected in mining communities and particularly in my constituency. I hope that he will reconsider the policy of no retrospection and implement the recommendations immediately.