“Cape Must Pay”: what is the campaign about?

Cape Asbestos Company controlled a quarter of the UK market in asbestos products with large asbestos mine holdings in the Northern Cape and Transvaal in South Africa.

The company opened its first asbestos factory in the UK in Barking in 1931 and developed “Asbestolux” and “Marinite” fire-resistant insulation boards. Along with Turner and Newell, they subsequently formed a cartel controlling the majority of the asbestos industry in the UK.

Cape is at the heart of the asbestos epidemic that has blighted working people in the UK for decades with hundreds of thousands of workers and their families having been exposed to cancer-causing asbestos dust from products directly developed and manufactured by Cape in the UK.

The UK has the highest rate of asbestos cancer in the world. It is estimated that between 1968 and 2020 over 67,000 people in the UK died as a result of contracting asbestos related mesothelioma, a particularly aggressive form of cancer that inevitably proves fatal.

Cape now forms part of a company called Altrad, which has significant cash reserves and a very large presence throughout the UK.

The Cape Must Pay campaign calls on Cape/Altrad to now do the right thing and to donate £10 million to help fund medical research into finding a cure for mesothelioma.

To place Cape under pressure, the Asbestos Victims Support Group Forum (“AVSGF”) have been coordinating asbestos support groups nationally to take the lead in demonstrations outside Cape offices. The call to action by AVSGF has been taken up by local support groups including Yorkshire and Humberside Asbestos Support Group and Greater Manchester Asbestos Victims Support Group.

There’s also an EDM (Early Day Motion) tabled at Parliament to raise awareness of the issue within the House of Commons and this is currently backed by 47 MPs.

Historically, research into mesothelioma has been chronically underfunded and a donation of £10 million could make a huge difference.

RWK Goodman have been assisting with the campaign by attending protests, including those in the North West and in Yorkshire, and raising awareness of this critical campaign.

We urge Cape to do the right thing and to make the donation to mesothelioma research which could make a real difference to thousands of people and their families.