Pressure grows over payouts for disease

By [mchannon]

MINISTERS are to be tackled over their 'slowness' in making a decision on restoring compensation for former dockyard workers suffering from an asbestos-related disease.

City MPs were set to join forces at Westminster to urge government action to end the plight of sufferers from pleural plaques, who have been denied payouts following a 2007 Law Lords' ruling.

Alison Seabeck for Plymouth Devonport is also to use a parliamentary debate she has secured into asbestos-related illness to press for specialist treatment for mesothelioma victims, currently only available on the continent, to be provided in this country.

Plymouth is a hotspot for asbestos-related deaths, many of them former workers at Devonport. It comes amid fears that a new generation of people affected by asbestos-related disease is being seen, through contact with their parents.

The Government continues to delay a decision on compensating sufferers from pleural plaques, which causes the lungs to scar following exposure to asbestos.

A backbench bid to restore payouts failed after running out of parliamentary time, but could come back through the Lords. Ms Seabeck said: "I want the Government and Commons to support it."

There has been continuing pressure on the Government to end the 'injustice' facing victims of pleural plaques by reinstating the right to payouts, stopped following a controversial ruling by the House of Lords in 2007.