More than 600 former miners in Wales died before receiving compensation for a condition caused after years of service to the coal industry, research carried out by Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood has found.
The figures on the Vibration White Finger (VWF) compensation scheme were released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change following a Freedom of Information application by Ms Wood. The response from the Westminster Government department shows that 645 ex-miners from Wales died before receiving their compensation.
Vibration White Finger is most commonly caused by the repetitive and persistence use of power tools which leads to a deficiency in the supply of blood to the fingers and can cause numbness. The interrupted blood supply may also cause the fingers to go into spasm. The condition, if not monitored, can develop into skin ulcers.
Many colliery workers were prone to developing this condition due to the use of pneumatic tools underground to mine coal. A regional breakdown of compensation payments by Welsh Parliamentary constituencies show that more than £22,000,000 was paid out to sufferers of VWF in the Cynon Valley alone. Nearly £13 million was also paid out to ex-miners from the Rhondda under the scheme. In Pontypridd, nearly £7.5 million was paid out in VWF compensation.
The VWF compensation scheme, along with the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) scheme, came about despite strong opposition in the courts from the then Labour UK Government. Under the COPD scheme alone, 3,253 former miners died while awaiting their compensation settlements.
After the Labour Government lost their case against the NACODS union in the High Court in January 1998 – less than 12 months after Tony Blair entered number 10 Downing Street – poor administration and insufficient resources in the claims handling department meant further delays in paying out money in the years that followed.
A report published in 2007 by the National Audit Office into the COPD scheme and the Vibration White Finger scheme concluded: “When the final claims have been discharged the Department (Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) will have settled more than three quarters of a million cases.
“This would be in itself a major achievement, but the Department might have been able to deliver the schemes more quickly and more cost effectively had it been better prepared at the time of the Court rulings and more particularly in the period of transition of responsibility from the Corporation.
“The Department produced limited strategic oversight or forward planning on how it would handle any resulting liability and insufficient resource was allocated to the task. This lack of preparation was to make the Department’s task significantly more difficult to administer, require substantial effort to put right, and cause frustration and upset to some claimants.”
Ms Wood said it was a “unjust” that ailing former miners had to wait so long and, in some cases, die before money that was rightfully theirs was handed over by the UK Government.
The AM for the South Wales Central region said: “Far too many former miners went to their death beds while the UK Government dragged its feet over paying out money under the WVF and the scheme for chest disease.
“In many cases the money owed to former miners in compensation was considerable and could have made a difference to the end of their lives, even if only from knowing that their families would have been financially secure after their deaths.
“The legal wrangles, inefficiencies and general feet-dragging in the compensation process meant many former miners were denied the satisfaction of receiving compensation before death. The former miners were given a raw deal and treated unjustly throughout this compensation process.
“I hope people will remember Labour’s treatment of former miners, many of whom were staunch Labour party supporters. These cases have shown how principles and promises were sacrificed very quickly by the Labour leadership after their successful General Election in 1997.
“While we wait for evidence from Labour in the Assembly to see how they are ‘standing up for Wales,’ it is difficult not to be sceptical about their delivery on that promise too.”
