We’re sure that by now all your favourite charities will have been in touch to ask you to raise the issues that matter most to them with the candidates in your constituency. Here are some things we would like you to ask them about before you decide how to cast your vote.
Removing Asbestos
Two years ago the Work and Pensions Select Committee recommended that the UK put in place a national plan to remove all asbestos from buildings over the next 40 years. If you are elected, will you support this?
Altrad
Altrad, the company which now owns Cape, has been given multi-million pound contracts to remove the dangerous asbestos which Cape originally made and sold. They are receiving £31 million alone for one contract, to help decommission the Berkley Power Station. If you are elected will you put pressure on Altrad to make a £10 million donation to research into treatments for mesothelioma, the fatal cancer caused by asbestos, before they are awarded any more contracts?
The DWP
The DWP was asked two years ago to save money by closing its specialist service for awarding Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit and lump sum compensation to people who had been poisoned by asbestos. Since then the time taken to award these payments to claimants has gone from a maximum of 13 weeks to a maximum of 28. Fast track claims for people with a terminal illness caused by asbestos were being turned around in ten working days. Now it often takes several months. If you are elected, will you put pressure on the government to improve the DWP’s performance, with a target to restore the service quickly to its previous high level?.
The DWP refuses to accept online applications for these benefits and any emails about them. If you are elected will you press them to apply the law which already says they should be doing this?