THE new Energy Minister has pledged to do all he can to help sick and dying miners in the North-East receive their compensation.

Brian Wilson, who replaces Peter Hain as Industry and Energy Minister, said he will make the miners' compensation issue his top priority and backed The Northern Echo's Justice for the Miners campaign.

Speaking on his first day in the Department of Trade and Industry post, he acknowledged that Labour's first term had failed to deliver the goods.

However, his candid approach failed to impress miner's daughter Pat Daglish, from Consett, who has campaigned tirelessly to help the region's sick ex-coal workers.

She said she expected little change in the speed of processing claims.

Mr Wilson said: "I would regard the compensation of miners as a number one priority. People owed money under the scheme should be given their money and in as short a time as possible.

"They have waited far too long and the process has not properly got under way. I fully endorse the campaign that The Northern Echo is running."

Last year, the newspaper launched its campaign, highlighting intolerable delays in payments to stricken ex-miners.

At the time, just one man from more than 110,000 claimants had received a full compensation settlement from the Government for lung diseases caused by working down the pits.

Mr Wilson added: "In the North-East, 20,613 claims of miners with respiratory disease have been received with nearly 5,000 of them sharing payments totalling £20m.

"The claims are still continuing to pour in - we are currently getting 700 new ones a week - not to mention 500 dealing with Vibration White Finger.

"We have 1,000 people working to process the claims. It is now a huge operation and I think the biggest compensation scheme in the world."

Ms Daglish, whose father Thomas died in December without receiving a penny despite filling in the forms, was not impressed. She said: "This is what the previous people said. I have had enough of their lies and I have had enough of the heartbreak. The £68m package they announced earlier this year didn't impress me. I don't see how things are going to change."

The package announced in March saw widows of former pitmen receive £2,000 as an interim payment before their husbands' claims are assessed.