Clause 5
Compensation Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
The Times has exposed the activities of the National Union of Mineworkers. It says:
“Elderly men suffering from chest diseases and a crippling hand condition were advised to allow the National Union of Mineworkers to fund their legal claims in return for paying part of their eventual compensation to the union.
But what the miners were never told was that in reality, the Government—and not the union—was paying the legal bills for successful claims.
The solicitors concerned, Yorkshire-based Raleys, have been paid £53 million of public money for their work on the cases settled so far.
The NUM has banked an estimated £10 million from the compensation scheme but has not paid legal costs in any of the 28,000 cases that Raleys has...handled.”
One of the claimants, Mr. Roberts from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, said that
“when he first contacted Raleys he was told he could only proceed if he signed a document agreeing to pay NUM contributions out of his compensation.”
He added:
“I was under the impression that the NUM was paying for the claim to go through and that they were supporting me.”
Recently, however, the Law Society’s adjudication panel has ruled against inadequate professional services in this connection.
According to The Times, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), who was a senior NUM official, described the union’s arrangement with Raleys as
“a scam from day one”
and added:
“The NUM has not put a penny into fighting these cases and they have raked in millions of pounds for doing very, very little”.
On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) described the NUM’s activities and highlighted the case of his constituent Mrs. Beckett, who was not a union member, but who was invited to have the NUM fund the case. That shows that the NUM was acting as a pure claims handler.