Injured miners who successfully sued their former solicitors for under-settling coal health compensation claims have won tens of thousands of pounds in settlements, it has emerged.

Documents obtained by the Gazette from a law firm that has handled miners’ negligence cases show that a small number of miners have successfully sued their former solicitors for up to £36,000 for bad advice that led to their claim being under-settled. An average of £11,700 was paid out by negligent firms to make the award up to the level that should have been received.

Meanwhile, David Kidney MP, junior minister at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, has told the chair of the All-Party Coalfield Communities Group Dave Anderson that variations in miners’ compensation are ‘inevitable.’ Anderson has asked Kidney to investigate if differences in compensation may be explained at least in part by bad advice from solicitors.

In a letter to Anderson, Kidney said that the case-by-case profile of claimants varied between solicitors, and that ‘it is to some extent inevitable that the payments averages would be variable between firms’.

The under-settling of miners’ compensation claims was explored in a Gazette special report last week.

Kidney has yet to decide whether to instigate a full investigation of the miners’ compensation scheme. He could not be reached for comment this week.