More than 150,000 miners have been improperly charged by solicitors over compensation claims, with £100 million in fees still unclaimed, a Labour MP has claimed.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) said more than 90% of miners have yet to reclaim these fees, years after he first raised the issue.
"It has been four-and-a-half years since the scandal rose to the surface and action needs to be taken at Government level to ensure justice is done and all miners are repaid fees that were wrongly deducted," he said.
Mr Mann claimed that when the final claim is settled, solicitors will have been paid more than £1.25 billion by the Government for handling compensation claims for chest disease and vibration white finger.
"In February 2005, there was a national outcry when an investigation into the coal health compensation scheme revealed that law firms across the country had wrongly taken a share of their clients' compensation.
"It has been estimated that 20% of the 750,000 beneficiaries have been improperly charged by solicitors who made deductions to compensation awards despite a fixed fee agreement with the Government," said the report.
