Thousands of ex-miners across Wales died while awaiting compensation for chest disease, according to figures from the Government.
Figures from the Freedom of Information reveal that 3,253 died waiting for compensation.
Plaid Cymru Assembly candidates have attacked Labour’s treatment of ailing former coal miners following the revelation.
Department of Energy and Climate Change figures show that in Caerphilly 247 former miners did not live to receive their compensation from the UK Government under the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) scheme.
Ron Davies said: “Almost 250 from the constituency died before they saw a penny from the compensation that was rightfully theirs. They were awarded the money, despite Labour’s attempts to stop it, because they contracted this terrible killer-disease, often after spending their working lives underground in unimaginable conditions.”
Lindsay Whittle, leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council and an Assembly candidate in South-East Wales, added: “The UK Government under New Labour made it as difficult as they possibly could for ex-miners and their widows to claim compensation.
“For Labour to lay claim to be the party that represents the working classes shows remarkable cheek and complete disdain for the intelligence of the electorate.”
Caerphilly’s figure is one of the highest in Wales. Across the whole of Wales, 3,253 former miners died before their compensation was awarded and a total of 17,894 former miners in England, Scotland and Wales died before their COPD claim was paid.
The scheme was delayed by legal wrangles when the Labour UK Government opposed the bid for compensation by the mining trades union, NACODS.
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.”
Bleddyn Hancock, General Secretary of the NACODS union and a Plaid Cymru candidate for next year’s Assembly elections for the South Wales East region, said: “This figure is an absolute disgrace and shows just how badly Labour handled this case. They tried to take the credit for bringing in the compensation schemes but it was the High Court that brought it in as a result of our union’s legal victory.”
Plaid Cymru’s Islwyn candidate Steffan Lewis was also angered by the figures.
He said: “The actions of the previous Labour government in fighting sick and dying miners in court was nothing short of shameful. While Labour hid behind the lawyers, thousands of miners died waiting for their rightful compensation. There is no clearer example of how Labour has turned its back on people who have traditionally been loyal to that party.”
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “The compensation schemes for Vibration White Finger and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease had a total of around 760,000 claims in all. This was the biggest scheme of its kind and we continually sought efficiencies and looked to learn and apply lessons from its delivery.
“Overall, the coal health schemes have been successful in delivering £4.1bn in compensation to sick miners.
“In total around £409m was paid in compensation in Wales for COPD to around 60,000 claimants.”
The former Labour and present Con/Lib London governments should hang their heads in shame not to have settled the just claims of the 3,253 miners in Wales who died before they saw a penny of the money that was deliberately delayed in being paid out to them.
Farmers and the landed gentry were paid compensation within months for their claims following the foot and mouth outbreak but some former miners waited up to fifteen years and many of them did not see one penny of their entitlement.
To rub salt into the wound, the former Labour and present Con/Lib government have taken billions of pounds out of the miners' pension schemes to pay compensation to former miners and their widowows. So when these governments try to tell us that they have been generous. Just remind them that the miners' comensation settlelements were actually paid for out from their own pension scheme.
Having spent 35 years in the mining industry, I sincerely believe those who allowed this to happen should hang their heads in shame.