Families of workers who died from silicosis by inhaling dust after cutting kitchen worktop stone are to receive higher compensation payouts, as ministers praised The i Paper‘s Killer Kitchens campaign for driving reform.
Bereaved families of workers who died from asbestos and other workplace dust-related diseases, including silicosis, before compensation had been paid had received less money than the worker would have been entitled to – an injustice families have long campaigned against.
Now the Government has said legislation will be laid on Tuesday to ensure they receive the same compensation as sufferers themselves, ending the discrepancy that has seen dependants paid on average £7,000 less than the workers affected.
Disability minister Stephen Timms said the compensation change would mean families were “no longer penalised twice, first by their loss, then by an unfair system.”
“Families who have lost a loved one to a disease caused by their work deserve our support, not a system that treats them as an afterthought,” Timms said.
“That’s exactly what’s been happening, and campaigners have been telling us for over a decade that it’s wrong.”
In an article for The i Paper, Timms credited its reporting on silicosis among quartz kitchen worktop workers with sharpening the case for reform.
“As awareness grows of occupational diseases such as silicosis, highlighted by campaigns such as The i Paper‘s Killer Kitchens campaign, it is more important than ever that families affected by industrial disease can access fair compensation,” he wrote.
Compensation often much more than average amount
The average payout received by sufferers is £17,700, with bereaved families receiving an average of £10,700, under two government compensation schemes.
The schemes provide lump-sum payments to workers who develop industrial lung diseases through their work, in cases where they cannot claim damages from an employer – often because the firm responsible has since gone out of business.
But the amount of compensation paid varies significantly depending on a claimant’s age and level of disablement, with younger, more severely affected claimants receiving substantially more than the average.
Families of kitchen worktop workers who died from silicosis would likely be entitled to far higher payouts than the £17,700 average, given their younger age.
A worker diagnosed at 43 – the average age of UK cases – would be entitled to between £40,034 and £107,691 depending on their level of disablement.
If approved by Parliament, the changes will come into force on 31 October. The devolved scheme in Northern Ireland is expected to introduce corresponding legislation.
Silicosis workers have faced fight for compensation
Lung diseases covered by the schemes include mesothelioma – a cancer caused almost exclusively by exposure to asbestos.
It also includes pneumoconiosis, which refers to lung scarring caused by inhaling dust over time, such as coal dust or silica dust.
Silicosis, the disease at the centre of The i Paper’s Killer Kitchens campaign, is a form of pneumoconiosis caused by inhaling respirable crystalline silica – a dust released when engineered stone is cut, ground or polished.
The i Paper has spent more than two years investigating silicosis among stonemasons cutting engineered stone, or quartz, kitchen countertops – reporting shortlisted for a British Journalism Award and Private Eye’s Paul Foot Award.
More than 50 UK cases have been recorded since the paper revealed the first in February 2024, with at least four deaths, including that of Marek Marzec, a father of three from Poland who died in November 2024, seven months after his diagnosis.
Quartz worktops can contain up to 95 per cent silica, far higher than natural stone such as granite or marble.
In December, The i Paper revealed that Marek Marzec, a 48-year-old stonemason, was approved on the day he died for a lump sum under one of the two Government compensation schemes.
Marek Marzec died in November 2024, just seven months after he was diagnosed with silicosisWhile receiving end-of-life care in hospital, the Polish father of two was also warned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that his entitlement to Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) “may be affected” if he did not attend an appointment in person without “good reason”.
Following the report, the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC), an independent body advising the DWP on which diseases qualify for industrial disability benefits, recommended that quartz workers with terminal silicosis have the benefit payment fast-tracked as is done with mesothelioma, a proposal the DWP is now considering.
Outright ban on quartz not ruled out
The i Paper’s Killer Kitchens campaign, launched in December 2025, called on the Government to ban the unsafe cutting of kitchen worktop stone in the UK, guarantee workplace health tests and a national database of sickness and deaths, and force the HSE to prosecute bosses in test cases.
Since the campaign launched, the HSE has issued its first regulatory guidance stating that dry cutting of engineered stone without water suppression tools is banned.
It has also launched an inspection campaign of 1,000 businesses in the sector – the regulator’s most significant intervention in the sector to date.
An outright ban on quartz, of the kind introduced in Australia in 2024, has not been ruled out.
Health officials are also weighing a national screening programme for stonemasons, another of the campaign’s central demands.
The i Paper revealed last month that proposals to bring silicosis screening under the UK National Screening Committee’s remit are being submitted ahead of a 30 September deadline.
Families of victims will get the compensation they deserve
By Stephen Timms, minister for Social Security and Disability
Behind every claim made under our asbestos and dust-disease compensation schemes is a family coming to terms with a diagnosis that, in most cases, will take someone from them far too soon.
A disease with no cure, caused by something as innocuous as the air in a factory or a shipyard, decades ago. They didn’t know it then. They know it now.
That’s the reality behind the paperwork and the payment schedules. These schemes were built because people who get sick through no fault of their own, simply by turning up to work, deserve support.
And when someone dies before they can make that claim themselves, the people they leave behind should receive the same support, in full.
For too long, it hasn’t. Where a claim was made by a dependant following the loss of a loved one, the amount payable was generally lower than the award that could have been paid to the person affected by the disease. This is a distinction that has never been easy to justify, and one that campaigners have raised with real conviction over many years.
As awareness grows of occupational diseases such as silicosis, highlighted by campaigns such as The i Paper’s Killer Kitchens, it is more important than ever that families affected by industrial disease can access fair compensation.
So we’re fixing it. From Tuesday, dependants of people who have died from these diseases will receive the same rate of compensation as sufferers themselves. This isn’t a technical adjustment. It’s a recognition that a family’s loss deserves to be treated with the same seriousness, whoever they are and whenever their loved one died.
We are also modernising the way compensation awards are calculated by removing outdated rules that still refer to medical boards that ceased operating years ago. These complex provisions have created unnecessary confusion and made decisions harder to apply consistently. We are replacing this with one clear and consistent method, so families can better understand what they are entitled to and why.
Nothing we do can lessen what these families have already lost. But we can make sure that, from here on, the support available to them is fair, clear and delivered without unnecessary delay.
That is what these changes achieve, and it is a change that has been a long time coming.
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