For immediate release - 17th July 2006

MPs will vote this week on reversing a controversial legal ruling by the house of lords affecting compensation for the asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma.

There was widespread criticism when the law lords ruled in May, in the case of Sylvia Barker v Corus UK Limited, that sufferers affected by mesothelioma and their families were not entitled to full compensation for the disease unless they could trace and sue all employers responsible for their asbestos exposure, or their insurers.

The government responded to the legal ruling by promising to introduce legislation to reverse the effects of the judgment. This week MPs will vote on the draft legislation, introduced as part of the compensation bill as it enters its final stages of the law-making process. The new draft law has emerged after strong campaigning from asbestos victims and their representatives and pressure from backbench MPs. The speed with which the government has moved has surprised observers.

At the centre of the house of lords case was Sylvia Barker, of Flintshire, North Wales, whose husband, Vernon, died of mesothelioma at the age of 57 in 1996. She commented: "I felt angry and cheated when the house of lords took away the ruling I had won in the high court, and which was upheld in the court of appeal. Now I feel some hope that, in the end, there will be a fair result."

Sylvia's solicitor, James Thompson, of the specialist law firm John Pickering and Partners, added: "I am delighted that the government has responded so rapidly to show compassion for the many asbestos sufferers and families affected by the unfair house of lords decision. The new draft legislation is exactly what was needed. It will mean that sufferers and their families can again receive full compensation for mesothelioma, as they did before the house of lords decided Sylvia's case."

The new legislation is to be considered by the house of commons today, Monday, and is due to complete its final reading in the house of lords later this week. The time from the decision of the house of lords to the date the legislation overturning it will be passed, expected to be this week, is two and a half months.