Construction union UCATT are calling on the government to reassess their political priorities, on the eve of the pre-Budget report, in order to provide desperately needed funding for pleural plaques sufferers.

In October 2007,the Law Lords announced that pleural plaques victims should no longer be compensated. Despite the extended time period, the government has still to announce whether they are prepared to overturn the compensation ban.

It is widely understood that the delay in an announcement is due to the government's reluctance to pay £35 million a year, to its own former workers who were negligently exposed to asbestos. This exposure predominantly occurred in the former nationalised shipyards and in the Ministry of Defence.

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The government's reluctance to find a relatively small amount of money to pay for pleural plaques victims, is in sharp contrast to its determination to press ahead with the highly expensive and unpopular ID cards scheme. It is estimated that ID cards will eventually cost £5.3 billion and it was recently revealed that the government was spending in excess of £250,00 a day on the project.

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, said: "It is outrageous that the government has failed to reinstate compensation for victims of pleural plaques, because it wants to avoid its own financial liabilities. This has become a major test of the government’s political judgement. Voters should ask their MPs why large amounts of money can be found for ID cards that virtually no-one wants but a far smaller amount of money cannot be found for people whose health has been needlessly damaged by asbestos."

Michael Clapham MP, who has led the campaign within Parliament, to reinstate compensation for pleural plaques victims, said: "The medical argument has moved on and the legal argument has moved on. There is no legal obstruction to overturning the Law Lords decision. What is needed now is a political decision to reinstate fairness and justice."

(CD/KMcA)