MPs are lobbying prime minister Gordon Brown to exclude solicitors from any government-run scheme to compensate workers for asbestos-related pleural plaques.

A group of Labour MPs closely involved with a parliamentary bill on the matter have held ‘frequent’ private meetings with Brown and senior ministers. Jim Sheridan, MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, a co-sponsor of the bill who is involved in the talks, told the Gazette this week: ‘We don’t want lawyers making a business out of other people’s misfortune.’

Dennis Skinner, MP for Bolsover, who is also a member of the group, said the government should not follow the model of the 1999 coal health compensation scheme, whereby some solicitors earned ‘millions’ for handling former miners’ lung and hand disease claims.

Whether or not a government-run scheme is set up depends on new legislation being passed to supercede a House of Lords ruling in 2007, in which the law lords decided that compensation for the thickening of the lung condition known as pleural plaques should not be available. The Damages (Asbestos-Related Conditions) Bill has already passed through the House of Commons, and had its first reading in the House of Lords in October.

Skinner told parliament last month: ‘We do not want a scheme that will be similar to the one that the miners had for chest disease and vibration white finger [which] forced every miner to have a separate solicitor. The net result was that the solicitors got a lot of money out of it.’

Skinner suggested that any scheme should ‘steer clear of solicitors making a small fortune out of every case’.