Law firms, who made millions from compensation funds set up to look after sick miners, must be shamed into returning it, according to Labour peer Lord Lofthouse.

Lawyers took money from miners’ pay-outs despite having their fees paid directly by the Government. Lord Lofthouse will hand a report on the double-charging to Downing Street today and call for the guilty solicitors to be named and shamed.

The peer says at least two firms have made £100 million from sick miners' cases and yet he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: “They haven’t been satisfied with that, they’ve been taking money out of miners’compensation.”

“I think it is appalling,” he said, suggesting each solicitor involved should be named “so we can take it up with the Law Society or the individual solicitors and hope they will be so shamed that they pay the money back”.

Lord Lofthouse, a former miner himself, insists that many of those owed compensation “only get a pittance”.

Labour MP John Mann said the practice was “outrageous” and that it was far more prevalent than the report suggests.

“Lord Lofthouse has said the amount of money involved was between two and three million, but I estimate it is nearly £50 million,” said the Bassetlaw MP. “It is theft of money from sick, elderly former mineworkers. Solicitors who refuse to pay back money should be struck off by the Law Society.”

The Government compensation scheme has already paid out more than £3 billion to ex-miners suffering respiratory diseases and conditions such as vibration white finger. The law firms took fees from the miners even though the full legal costs of every successful claim had been paid by the Department of Trade and Industry.

Peter Williamson, chair of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, told the BBC: “I’m ashamed that solicitors whose costs are being met by the Government should do such a thing. Solicitors are supposed to put their clients’ interests first, and that is a fundamental, professional principle.” So far, law firms have voluntarily handed back to miners more than £3.6 million in legal fees after letters from the Law Society.

Last year, the Legal Services Ombudsman ruled that ex-miners, who had complained about payments taken by solicitors, had been “badly let down” by the Law Society. The ombudsman accused the body of failing to act impartially, pressuring complainants, failing to examine each case on its merits and failing to consider whether deductions from miners' compensation should be paid back in full.

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