MP's call for claims firm to repay pitman money

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), April 15, 2004

Byline: By Steven Oliver

Labour's Kevan Jones is calling for a change in the law to protect dying miners from firms charging former pitmen for helping win compensation payouts.

Durham North MP Mr Jones branded claims handling firm Industrial Diseases Compensation Limited of Ashington, Northumberland, greedy after it charged one ex-pitman u3,000.

Mr Jones was angry to learn one of his constituents, 70-year-old Richard Jobes from Stanley, County Durham, had to pay IDC the cash following a successful claim for lung damage paid out last year.

The MP believes IDC, which collects cases before handing them over to law firms to be processed, did little to earn the huge fee.

In response IDC claimed the cash was charged to cover legal fees and medical examination costs in preparing the case for Mr Jobes.

And they pointed out that Mr Jobes signed up with them in April 1999, a few months before Government legislation to meet the costs of the claims came into force in September.

The firm now charges a u100 handling fee rather than take a percentage of payouts.

Speaking at a press conference in Stanley this morning, Mr Jones said: "I am today challenging IDC to give an explanation for why this charge was made and what it is meant to cover.

"If they can't supply information on what this fee was based, I believe they should repay the money immediately. Otherwise it would appear to be a case of simple greed from IDC."

In response, a spokesman for Industrial Diseases Compensation said: "May we make it clear that neither IDC Ltd nor the solicitor who handled Mr Jobe's claim have received either a verbal or written complaint vis e vis the handling of this case. If we had, it would have been recorded and dealt with.

"We are satisfied that the terms of the contract between IDC Ltd and Mr Jobes were honoured in full and strenuously reject any suggestion that we failed in our obligations to Mr Jobes. IDC Ltd has behaved properly throughout the handling of this case."