Justice 2 Committee, 27 Feb 2002
Meeting date: Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Official Report
147KB pdf
Petition
Asbestos (PE336)
I hope that members have the note that was circulated late on petition PE336. We have dealt with the petition many times. It has become almost a feature of our committee business, and we are committed to dealing with it. I will not go through the whole note, but I will recap the situation. Members should have a letter from the petitioner, Frank Maguire, which is helpful. After we started dealing with the petition, an announcement was made about Lord Mackay of Drumadoon dealing with some asbestosis cases, to quicken the procedure. We wrote to Lord Cullen to ask for details on how that was working in practice. Members have a letter from Lord Cullen which explains the procedure.
We should consider the outcome of the Coulsfield report because its recommendations on rule changes might have helped to resolve some of the issues in the petition. The question is whether the procedure that the Lord President has enacted is sufficiently speedy to deal with the issues in the petition and whether the Coulsfield report tackles some of the rule changes in court procedure that the petition requires. I know from reading Frank Maguire's letter that he feels that those measures do not go far enough and that they do not get to the heart of the matter, which is about the Scottish pleadings system.
The committee must consider whether to take the matter further and, if so, in which direction. The note from the clerk contains suggestions as to what we might do. It is clear to me that, as we have taken matters so far, we should finish the business. We have a planned date to meet Lord Cullen, so we could put the issue on the agenda and discuss it with him then.
Perhaps members will give some feedback on the other options in the note from the clerk. One possibility is to initiate legislation connected to the issues raised in the petition.
We have discussed the matter on three occasions; it is not for the want of trying that we have not found an adequate solution. Perhaps the way forward is a combination of some of the suggestions in the note from the clerk. At the proposed meeting with the Lord President in March, we should discuss the matter with him to discover his views. We should also invite the petitioner back to the committee to put evidence on the record about the events of the past few months.
We can then consider whether to initiate legislation to progress the matter further, which is what the petition asked us to do at the beginning. At that time, we felt that we were not in a position to say yea or nay, but given the information that we have received in the intervening time, our view might be different. The way forward is along those lines.
I share Frank Maguire's concern that it appears to be only at this stage that Lord Cullen and others have become aware that there are as many as 500 outstanding cases involving asbestosis victims. That is a disappointing reflection of the way in which the Scottish court system has dealt with the situation.
We should raise the matter with the Lord President when we meet him. I concur with Scott Barrie that we should invite Frank Maguire back to the committee. We must not allow the issue to go away. Every member of the Parliament has constituents who are affected by the problem. Although we should welcome Lord Mackay's court as an additional resource that has been put into progressing the 500 cases, that court has not changed directly the way in which cases are dealt with. We must consider the considerable issues in the handling of civil cases of the type that are mentioned in the petition.
Scott Barrie's and Stewart Stevenson's comments contain a great deal of sense. One problem is that even with the introduction of Lord Mackay's court, insurance companies can still settle cases as they go through the court door. There is something intrinsically wrong with any set-up in which it benefits a party to an action to stretch out that action as long as possible, particularly in cases of this type, in which we know that real hardship is involved. There is therefore a secondary consideration here, which we may have to consider in due course.
In a few weeks' time, we will be able to give more attention to such matters. The dual approach is the answer. In the first instance, we should hear how Frank Maguire feels that the introduction of the new procedures is likely to assist his clients, many of whom continue to suffer seriously. At that stage we will have a firmer basis on which to approach the Lord President. It would be useful if we could hear from Frank Maguire in the morning, prior to the meeting with Lord Cullen.
Okay. It is clear that the committee wants to continue its work on this issue. The letter that we received from Frank Maguire is helpful. It is clear that, although the new procedure is welcome—and we should welcome what has been done—and the Lord President has recognised that asbestos victims have been penalised by the process and should be a priority, another Lord President could do away with it next month: there is no certainty about it. Frank Maguire also makes the point that there is a procedure for commercial cases of the kind that is sought for these types of cases. It is not clear why we could not institute that kind of procedure for asbestos cases.
The committee's decision is to continue consideration of the issue and to call Frank Maguire for the next available slot. We will leave the other options lying on the table as a possibility. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
We will meet the Lord President on 12 March and we can have an informal discussion to try to understand more of the detail attached to the petition.