Britain runs not one but four separate government compensation routes for people harmed by asbestos, and the money moving through them is substantial and rising. This page pulls together the official payout figures from the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme annual statistics, the ministerial figures placed on the Parliamentary record in the annual uprating debates (Hansard), the House of Commons Library briefing on DWP asbestos payments, and DWP's benefit-rate publications on GOV.UK. It sets out how much each scheme pays, how many people claim, and how the rates change — using government's own numbers rather than law-firm payout estimates.
The four routes overlap in confusing ways, so the page starts with a short explainer of how they fit together before working through each scheme's statistics in turn. The figures below are about the compensation and claims money; the underlying disease counts — how many people are diagnosed with or die from mesothelioma and asbestosis — live on our UK asbestos statistics and asbestosis statistics pages, and are used here only as a measure of claim volume.
Key asbestos compensation facts and figures
- £30.4 million was paid by the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme (DMPS) to 220 successful applicants in 2024/25, up from £26.6 million to 190 in 2023/24.
- £137,000 was the average (mean) DMPS payment in the 12 months to March 2025.
- £335.1 million has been awarded by the DMPS to 2,290 people with diffuse mesothelioma since it launched in April 2014.
- £51.6 million was spent on lump-sum awards under the 1979 Pneumoconiosis Act and 2008 mesothelioma schemes combined in 2024/25.
- 2,540 + 610 awards were made in 2024/25 under the 1979 Act scheme and the 2008 scheme respectively (Hansard, March 2026).
- £18,733 to £120,566 is the current payment range under the 2008 mesothelioma scheme, depending on age at diagnosis.
- 3.8% uprating raised both lump-sum schemes' rates from 1 April 2026, in line with September 2025 CPI.
- £28.6 million was the DMPS levy charged to employers' liability insurers for 2024/25 — the scheme is funded by industry, not the taxpayer.
Figures are the latest available as of July 2026 and this page is updated when new data is released. The DMPS annual statistics are published each November or December (the 2024/25 edition landed on 4 December 2025); the uprating regulations and Hansard award figures come each February to March; new payment rates take effect every 1 April; IIDB caseloads refresh quarterly on Stat-Xplore; and HSE publishes its asbestos-related disease statistics each July, revised in November.
How do the four UK asbestos compensation schemes fit together?
There are four government routes, and they are designed to catch people whom the ordinary civil-claims system misses. They are not alternatives you pick between so much as a safety net that fills in where a live employer or insurer can no longer be sued. Understanding which is which is the single most confusing part of the topic, so here is the plain-English version.
| Scheme | What it is | Type of payment |
|---|---|---|
| IIDB | Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit — the state disability benefit for a disease caused by employment | Weekly benefit |
| 1979 Act | Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979 — for asbestos diseases where the employer no longer exists to be sued | One-off lump sum |
| 2008 scheme | Diffuse Mesothelioma Scheme (2008) — for mesothelioma sufferers who fall outside the 1979 Act (e.g. non-occupational exposure) | One-off lump sum |
| DMPS (2014) | Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme — the "last resort" fund for mesothelioma where no liable employer or insurer can be traced | One-off lump sum |
The logical order runs from the everyday to the last resort. Almost anyone with a prescribed asbestos disease acquired through work can claim IIDB, the weekly benefit. If they cannot bring a civil claim because the employer responsible has dissolved, the 1979 Act lump sum steps in. The 2008 scheme extends a comparable lump sum to mesothelioma sufferers who fall outside the 1979 Act — for example, people exposed environmentally rather than at work, or through a family member's overalls. And the DMPS, funded by a levy on the insurance industry, is the backstop for mesothelioma sufferers who could in principle have sued but cannot trace a solvent defendant or their insurer. A payment from one scheme is generally offset against the others, so people do not stack the full value of all four.
One important boundary: the compensation available to armed-forces veterans through the War Pension Scheme and the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme is a separate system and is covered on our veterans and asbestos statistics page, not here.
How much does the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme pay out?
The DMPS paid £30.4 million to 220 successful applicants in 2024/25, at an average (mean) payment of £137,000. That was up from £26.6 million paid to 190 applicants in 2023/24, continuing the upward drift in both the number of awards and the total spend. The DMPS is the newest of the four schemes, established under the Mesothelioma Act 2014 to compensate people diagnosed with diffuse mesothelioma who were negligently exposed at work but cannot trace the employer or the employer's liability insurer to sue — a genuinely common problem given the decades between exposure and diagnosis.
Since it opened in April 2014, the DMPS has awarded £335.1 million to 2,290 people. Of that cumulative total, £277.9 million was paid directly to applicants and £57.2 million was repaid to the DWP to recover state benefits (such as IIDB) already paid for the same condition — a mechanism that stops the same loss being compensated twice from the public purse. The scheme deliberately sets its tariff close to what a comparable civil claim would recover: it is a substitute for the court award the claimant can no longer pursue, not a token payment.
| DMPS measure | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
|---|---|---|
| Total paid to applicants | £26.6m | £30.4m |
| Successful applicants | 190 | 220 |
| Average (mean) payment | — | £137,000 |
| Levy on EL insurers | — | £28.6m |
Source: DWP, Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme annual statistics (April 2014 to March 2025), published 4 December 2025.
How many DMPS claims are made, and how many succeed?
395 DMPS applications were received in 2024/25, and 3,940 have been received in total since 2014, with 68% of decided applications succeeding overall. The claims that reach a decision have a solid but not automatic success rate — of the applications decided in 2024/25, 72% were successful, 21% were rejected and 7% were withdrawn. Applications fail most often where the applicant is found to have a traceable insurer (and so should claim civilly), where the diagnosis is not confirmed as diffuse mesothelioma, or where eligibility dates are not met.
The demographic profile is striking and consistent with the occupational history of asbestos exposure in Britain. In 2024/25, 89% of DMPS applicants were male, and 80% of successful applicants were aged between 65 and 84 — reflecting a workforce exposed in the heavy trades of the 1960s, 70s and 80s who are reaching the end of the disease's decades-long latency now. Because mesothelioma is almost always fatal within months of diagnosis, a large share of DMPS awards are in practice paid to, or claimed by, dependants.
How much do the 1979 Act and 2008 lump-sum schemes pay?
Expenditure on lump-sum awards under the 1979 Pneumoconiosis Act and the 2008 mesothelioma scheme totalled £51.6 million in 2024/25, across 2,540 awards under the 1979 Act and 610 under the 2008 scheme. These are the older lump-sum routes that sit alongside the DMPS. The 1979 Act covers a range of dust-related diseases including asbestosis, diffuse pleural thickening and mesothelioma where the responsible employer has ceased trading; the 2008 scheme was created specifically to reach diffuse mesothelioma sufferers who fall outside the 1979 Act, such as those exposed outside the workplace.
The averages differ sharply by scheme and by whether the claimant is the sufferer or a bereaved dependant. In 2024/25 the 1979 Act paid an average of £14,700 to sufferers and £11,500 to dependants, while the 2008 scheme paid an average of £26,600 to sufferers and £8,500 to dependants (figures placed on the record by the minister in the March 2026 Lords uprating debate). Both schemes pay more to living sufferers claiming in their own right than to dependants claiming after a death, and both pay more the younger the claimant, reflecting a longer expected period of loss.
| Scheme (2024/25) | Awards | Avg — sufferer | Avg — dependant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 Pneumoconiosis Act | 2,540 | £14,700 | £11,500 |
| 2008 mesothelioma scheme | 610 | £26,600 | £8,500 |
Source: Hansard, House of Lords Grand Committee, 2 March 2026 (Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments uprating debate).
What are the current asbestos compensation payment rates?
Under the 2008 mesothelioma scheme, current payments range from £18,733 for a person diagnosed at age 77 or over up to £120,566 for a person diagnosed at age 37 or under. The scheme uses a fixed tariff based purely on age at diagnosis — the younger the sufferer, the larger the payment, because the years of life and earnings lost are greater. The full tariff runs in age bands between those two figures, and the equivalent 1979 Act tariff follows the same age-graded logic.
Both lump-sum schemes' rates rose by 3.8% from 1 April 2026, in line with the September 2025 Consumer Prices Index. Uprating is not automatic in law — it requires fresh regulations each year, laid as a statutory instrument and debated in both Houses — but in recent years the government has consistently applied the September CPI figure to keep the tariffs broadly in step with inflation. The rate that applies to a claim is fixed at the point entitlement first arises, so the date of diagnosis and claim matters.
How many asbestos IIDB claims are paid, and how much is the benefit?
Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit pays up to £236.10 a week at 100% assessed disablement (2025/26 rate), and 1,680 new mesothelioma cases were assessed for it in 2024, up from 1,605 in 2023. IIDB is the weekly benefit — distinct from the one-off lump sums above — paid to people whose prescribed disease was caused by their employment. Unlike the lump-sum schemes, it does not depend on whether an employer can be traced or sued; entitlement turns on the disease and the occupational link. The amount paid scales with the assessed level of disablement, and for a rapidly progressing disease such as mesothelioma the assessment is typically at or near 100%.
The IIDB "new cases assessed" count is best read here as a measure of claims volume rather than of disease burden — the underlying incidence and mortality figures belong on the disease-statistics pages. Even so, the trend in assessments is a useful barometer of how many people are entering the compensation system each year. It rose from 1,605 mesothelioma assessments in 2023 to 1,680 in 2024, of which 195 were female. Because IIDB assessments, lump-sum awards and DMPS payments each count different things, they should never be added together to produce a single "number of asbestos claims" — a person may appear in more than one.
Who pays for asbestos compensation — the taxpayer or industry?
The DMPS is funded entirely by a levy on the employers' liability insurance industry, set at £28.6 million for 2024/25, whereas the 1979 Act, 2008 scheme and IIDB are funded from public expenditure. The distinction matters both fiscally and politically. When Parliament created the DMPS in 2014, the design principle was that the insurance industry — which collected premiums for employers' liability cover over the decades of asbestos use — should fund the backstop for the very claims those policies were meant to answer, rather than the cost falling on general taxpayers. The levy is recalculated annually to keep the fund solvent against the flow of claims.
For the government-funded schemes, DWP's Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU) reclaims benefits and lump sums out of any civil compensation a claimant later recovers for the same disease, so the state is partly reimbursed where a civil route does eventually succeed. That recovery mechanism is why the DMPS cumulative total splits into the £277.9 million paid to applicants and the £57.2 million recovered back to DWP — the schemes are engineered to avoid double compensation from public funds.
How do government payments compare with civil compensation?
The government's own framing is that scheme payments are set relative to average civil compensation — the DMPS tariff in particular is pitched to approximate what a successful court claim would recover. That is the deliberate design of a "last resort" scheme: it exists because the claimant cannot pursue the civil route (usually because no solvent defendant or insurer can be traced), so it aims to deliver a broadly comparable sum rather than a reduced consolation payment. This is why the average DMPS award (£137,000 in 2024/25) sits well above the older lump-sum averages, which were never intended to match a full civil settlement.
Beyond that government-anchored comparison, this page does not attempt to quantify "average payout" figures from the civil-claims market — those vary enormously by exposure history, prognosis and jurisdiction, and the commercially published estimates are not official statistics. All-injury civil claim volumes and the wider personal-injury compensation landscape sit outside the asbestos remit and are not covered here. What the official numbers do show is a compensation system paying out well over £80 million a year across the schemes combined, three decades after the UK's asbestos import peak, with the flow still rising as the disease works through the most heavily exposed cohorts.
Frequently asked questions
How much compensation do people with mesothelioma get from UK government schemes?
It depends on the scheme. The Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme paid an average of £137,000 per successful applicant in 2024/25. The older 2008 mesothelioma lump-sum scheme pays a fixed tariff from £18,733 (diagnosed at 77 or over) up to £120,566 (diagnosed at 37 or under), and averaged £26,600 to sufferers in 2024/25. Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit is a separate weekly payment of up to £236.10 (2025/26) rather than a lump sum.
How many asbestos compensation claims are paid in the UK each year?
Across the main lump-sum routes in 2024/25 there were 220 successful DMPS awards, 2,540 awards under the 1979 Pneumoconiosis Act and 610 under the 2008 scheme, plus 1,680 new mesothelioma cases assessed for IIDB. These count different things and overlap, so they cannot simply be added into a single total, but they indicate several thousand asbestos compensation decisions a year.
Who pays for the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme?
The employers' liability insurance industry, through an annual levy — set at £28.6 million for 2024/25 — not the taxpayer. The scheme was designed so that insurers who collected employers' liability premiums during the asbestos era fund the backstop for claims where the original insurer can no longer be traced.
When do asbestos compensation payment rates change?
The lump-sum tariffs are normally uprated once a year, taking effect from 1 April, via regulations debated in Parliament each February and March. The most recent increase was 3.8% from 1 April 2026, in line with September 2025 CPI. IIDB weekly rates are uprated on the usual benefit timetable in April, and the DMPS publishes fresh annual statistics each November or December.
What is the difference between the 1979 Act scheme and the DMPS?
The 1979 Pneumoconiosis Act scheme is an older lump-sum route covering several dust diseases where the responsible employer has ceased trading, and it pays a relatively modest age-graded tariff. The DMPS, created in 2014, is specific to diffuse mesothelioma and pays a much higher, near-civil-level sum — an average of £137,000 in 2024/25 — funded by an insurance-industry levy rather than public expenditure.
Behind every one of these payments is an exposure that happened decades ago, on a worksite where the risk was not managed. The training that prevents the next generation of claims is our CPD-certified Asbestos Awareness Course, which covers the duties set out in Regulation 10 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.
Every claim in these statistics traces back to an exposure that could have been prevented. Make sure your team can recognise asbestos before they disturb it.
Explore the Asbestos Awareness Course →Related guides
- Asbestos Statistics UK: Deaths, Exposure & Key Facts
- Asbestosis Statistics UK: Deaths, IIDB Cases & Trends
- Veterans & Asbestos Statistics UK
- What to do if you've been exposed to asbestos
- The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 explained
Sources & references
- DWP — Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme annual statistics (April 2014 to March 2025), published 4 December 2025
- DWP — Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit quarterly statistics (Stat-Xplore)
- HSE — Asbestos-related disease statistics, Great Britain (IIDB-assessed case data)
- House of Commons Library — Asbestos-related diseases: payments from the DWP (SN06012)
- Hansard — Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments uprating debate, House of Lords Grand Committee, 2 March 2026
- GOV.UK — Diffuse mesothelioma payment (2008 scheme): what you'll get
- legislation.gov.uk — Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (3.8% uprating, in force 1 April 2026)
- DWP — Compensation Recovery Unit performance data
Mark writes about workplace health & safety, asbestos awareness and accredited online training for Asbestos Awareness Course, part of Online CPD Academy.