THE Government last night faced demands to order an inquiry into delays in the massive compensation scheme for former miners crippled by industrial disease.

Prime Minister Tony Blair this week promised urgent action to speed up compensation pay-outs to ex-pitmen stricken by lung disease and other health problems.

But North-East Labour MP and former miner Ronnie Campbell yesterday signalled that was not enough and angrily told the Commons: "Unfortunately, miners are still not being paid."

Earlier this month, The Northern Echo reported how only £12m has been given to claimants in the North-East and only £97m had been paid out nationally to former miners suffering from emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Leading North-East solicitor Roger Maddocks condemned the rate of payments as "unacceptably low".

So yesterday in the Commons, Blyth Valley MP Mr Campbell called on Trade Secretary and North Tyneside MP Stephen Byers to stage "an inquiry into what's going wrong with compensation payments".

The probe should focus on "why they're not being paid and who's to blame", he said.

"It seems to be one blaming the other, and a good inquiry and a statement to this House would not be amiss."

Commons Leader Margaret Beckett said the whole government understood the concerns and insisted action had been taken to speed up the claims process.

But she said much of the problem stemmed from the fact that "these are the largest personal injury litigations in the history of the UK." Mrs Beckett added: "No matter how great the pressure that we exert on those responsible, it will take time to deal with these issues."

But miners organisation NACODS has already accused the Government of worsening the delays by arguing over the pension rights of miners invalided out of work.

Ministers are also under fire for refusing to scrap the system of deducting previously-paid benefit payments from compensation offers to some claimants.

Read more about the campaigning miners here.