Slate dust legal action chance

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Former slate quarry workers may soon be able to sue insurance companies to compensate them for a dust disease.

Some workers with silicosis or their widows have been unable to make claims for negligence against former employers because the firms no longer exist.

However, Conwy MP Betty Williams and Barnsley West and Pennistone MP Mick Clapham have been told that action is possible against insurers.

The BBC Politics Show has been told a test case could soon be prepared.

The quarry workers and their families have been campaigning for compensation for years for the effects of slate dust.

There has long been criticism that slate workers have not been treated in the same way as coal miners over the compensation issue, because of their lack of political clout.

Scientific evidence

Betty Williams, whose own father died from the effects of slate dust, told BBC Wales that the issue had been treated for too long as a political football.

There has long been resentment that the slate workers have not been treated in the same way as coal miners and their widows.

Mick Clapham told programme that the act of parliament which deals with benefit payments for former slate workers makes no mention of insurance companies.

The MPs hope compensation can come via insurance companies

However, he said the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) have confirmed that legal action can be started against an insurance company which covered one of the slate companies.

If the insurance company is no longer in business, action could be taken against the Insurance Compensation Scheme, he said.

"There could be pay outs of 90% of the value of the claim," said Mr Clapham.

Ted Oliver, 90, a former union official, said silicosis had made his life difficult.

"I used to do the gardening in a couple of hours - but since I had this dust, it would take about a week."

Honourary president of Plaid Cymru Dafydd Wigley said his party had helped bring in legislation to help workers in the slate, cotton and pottery industries in the final days of the Labour government in 1979.

But he said there were complications.

"It has paid out £100m in compensation..but there were workers who could not claim their entitlement or take legal action," said Mr Wigley.

"Some of them worked for two different quarry companies, one defunct and the other still operating, so they had to prove which quarry was responsible."

This week, the UK Government also signalled it was prepared to consider new scientific evidence to change the current rules applying to the benefit system relating to slate dust diseases.