YOU would not have to read through many copies of the Daily Echo before you came across an inquest into the death of a Hampshire person from mesothelioma.

The lung cancer has claimed, and continues to claim, scores of victims every year.

Exposure to asbestos – so widely used in the shipbuilding, construction and car industries – is one of the main causes.

It killed 1,123 people in Hampshire including 229 people from Southampton between 1981 and 2000 and many more since.

That it is an appalling disease is indisputable – and sufferers deserve some compensation for their distress.

That is why the Daily Echo welcomes the Government’s U-turn, reported on page 17, which will finally deliver full compensation to victims.

It is hard not to agree with critics who argue the compensation scheme does not go far enough as it will only apply fully to people diagnosed with mesothelioma from this month.

Yet this is definitely a step in the right direction to ensure some degree of help to the many victims and families that mesothelioma has left without financial support.