I have been advised that I should be brief, and I always follow wise advice.

The effect of the amendment is that section 2—now clause 2 of the Bill—would come into effect on the Bill's receiving Royal Assent. The reason for the amendment is powerful: the Bill provides that many sections will come into effect on such days as the Secretary of State will appoint; my amendment would ensure that there was no delay in bringing into force the provisions of section 2, which determines which payments will be affected by the Act.

What is the reason for the postponement? The Court of Session and the sheriff court in Scotland have co-extensive jurisdiction over cases for compensation. There are certain jurisdictional advantages in taking a case to the Court of Session rather than the sheriff court. The Minister is a lawyer and, while he may not have a degree in Scottish law, I know that he has some knowledge of Scottish law. Although I do not know what pertains in English and Welsh courts, a disadvantage in going to the Court of Session is that it can be difficult to stop proceedings in that court. Postponing matters in the sheriff court can also be troublesome, but the problem is particularly applicable to the Court of Session.

Given the area that I represent, The Minister will not be surprised to learn that asbestosis is all too common among my constituents. If Royal Assent and commencement were to coincide, would he not agree that that would obviate all clawback decisions that would arise if there was a time lag of some six to seven months between the two dates?

I should have said—although I suspect the Minister knows it—that I am not a lawyer and have had no legal training in Scottish law. Nevertheless, it seems to me that there is a real problem where cases are due to be heard. Several of my constituents have expressed deep concern about what they, as lay men and women, see as legal, technical and procedural problems. One man—a skilled tradesman who was severely injured at work a few years ago, who has a wife and children and who has not worked since the injury—asked me, "Why should there be these delays? Why October? Why not April?" Those are reasonable questions for the Minister to answer.

Mr. Frank Maguire, a Glasgow lawyer who advises Clydeside Action on Asbestos, wrote to the Minister as recently as 13 March and, after posting the letter to the Minister, he kindly gave me a copy. I know that masses of correspondence fall on the Minister's desk, but I should like to remind him of what Frank Maguire—a fellow lawyer—had to say. He wrote: While many personal injury lawyers are not advancing cases in anticipation of the Act coming into force so that their case is not settled or determined as at that date there are cases where trials have been fixed. Although he is a good friend of mine, I have to say that he writes like a lawyer. The number of cases about which we are speaking is therefore limited. I do not think that the Minister will challenge that statement. I cannot speak about what is happening in England and Wales, but in Scotland the number of cases is relatively small.

Mr. Maguire continues: Having regard to the limited number we cannot see how the Act cannot apply to cases which have not been settled or determined at the date of Royal Assent and CRU recoupment applied after October 1997. He states that there is a precedent for that, and continues: While we appreciate you may not have been responsible for the original 1989 Act the Government then had no qualms in bringing into force an Act in the middle of 1989 which it applied to accidents or diseases after 1st January 1989.

I tabled amendment No. 1 because of my serious concerns for some of my constituents. The case of a young man in Port Glasgow is now being dealt with in the Court of Session and the sheriff court by a firm of lawyers in Greenock, who are highly skilled in such cases. Another man, who is an ambulance driver, was badly injured. He, too, is concerned about such delays.

I expect a positive response from the Minister, to make the dates of Royal Assent and commencement the same. If he were to do that, he would earn the gratitude of many people in constituencies such as mine.