EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY INSURANCE

EDM number 1839 in 2007-08, proposed by David Taylor on 19/06/2008.
Categorised under the topics of Employment and Financial services.

That this House is alarmed by the Government's proposal to abolish the requirement on employers to retain employers' liability compulsory insurance for 40 years; acknowledges that the existing law is poorly enforced; notes that the Government intend to introduce a statutory instrument before the summer recess to achieve this reform to employment and insurance law; recognises the significant distress of mesothelioma sufferers and their families who have been awarded industrial injury damages in court but cannot trace their former employers' insurers; believes that this inability to trace the insurers of employers whose workers were exposed to fatal asbestos dust as part of their work illustrates the need for insurance law to be strengthened, not weakened; further believes that the Department for Work and Pensions' solution will absolve employers and their insurers from responsibility for future victims of industrial illnesses like mesothelioma who are diagnosed with a fatal industrial illness many years after exposure; and calls upon the Government not to introduce this statutory instrument to withdraw and to consult the public further on this matter.

This motion has been signed by a total of 50 MPs.