OVER £15 million compensation has been paid out to miners' families in the Leigh area.

And this week proposals have been forwarded to speed up claim payments to miners' widows and their families.

Coal Health Minister Nigel Griffiths has revealed the Department of Trade and Industry's proposals which have been submitted to the High Court in advance of a hearing next week.

Plans are to offer a flat rate payment of £1,200 to widows and £1,000 to next of kin where the miner died at least 20 years ago and medical records are therefore unlikely to be available, making claims extremely difficult to assess. An estimated 78,000 claims are likely to fall into this category.

For miners who have passed away more recently - an estimated 112,000 - families will automatically receive a full assessment by a respiratory specialist.

But before this takes place, they can choose to opt in to the same early payment and exit the scheme.

The early payments option may be particularly beneficial to those in this group who have limited information about their relative's condition or know the miner's illness was limited to non-disabling chronic bronchitis, for which lower payments mostly under £1,000 - are made.

This fast-track should take things on another stage as it mainly affects claims by children/grandchildren for people who died a long time ago. Instead of waiting ages for medical records to be found, they can now take £1000 immediately (which is higher than the average for claims of this kind).As of October 31, the overall pay-out in Leigh was £15, 542,994. The figures for the year-end in preceding years show how things have improved: 2001 - £3,197,967; 2002 - £6,240,815; 2003 - 10,999,680.