LABOUR signalled a new bid last night to come to the aid of ex-miners crippled with chest disease, amid growing anger that many are dying before they can win the compensation they deserve.

More than 18,000 former pitmen across the North-East have applied for compensation, but only about 500 of the applications have been settled fully so far.

At Westminster today, the Government will come under severe pressure to speed up the process and get the cash to seriously-ill ex-miners before it is too late.

Peter Hain, the new Energy Minister in charge of the miners' compensation scheme, is also likely to be urged to ditch the system of "clawing back" previous benefit payments when compensation is paid.

Yesterday, Mr Hain told The Northern Echo of his mission to improve the "desperately slow" system of compensating miners for crippling chest diseases.

Mr Hain, MP for Neath in South Wales where two collieries are still operating, underlined his credentials to speak up for former miners across the country.

"I am a socialist Labour heartlands MP and I am going to deliver (for the miners)," he said.

Last week, Mr Hain conceded that across the UK nearly 7,000 former collierymen had died before their claims were fully dealt with, in what is the biggest industrial injuries compensation case in British legal history.

The minister, who took over 13 days ago from Helen Liddell in the reshuffle caused by Hartlepool MP Peter Mandelson's resignation from the Cabinet, hit out at the "cobweb of bureaucracy, which I find deeply frustrating and distressing".

Mr Hain said that £14.4m had been paid out across the North-East so far in compensation for respiratory disease.

He rejected the argument that Labour had only introduced the compensation scheme after being ordered to do so by the High Court in 1998.

He said the court action had "snarled up" the process, adding: "I wish the courts had never got involved."

Labour would have paid the money without the court ruling, said Mr Hain. "We were committed to it."