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Equitable Life

There have been three debates on Equitable Life and the Government's response to the ombudsman this year, and we had a good debate during oral questions a week or two ago. I return to the basic argument that I have presented this afternoon: if we think an ex gratia scheme should be set up, to ensure that money under that scheme goes to the people who have been hardest hit, the first piece of work that we must do is to understand who has lost what. Until we do so, it is difficult to get up and running an ex gratia scheme that will operate justly. Surely, that must be the objective of right hon. and hon. Members. Sir John has an enormous amount of work to do to go through the information that has been passed to him by Equitable Life. A number of right hon. and hon. Members have made representations, and he is moving quickly. He is publishing reports in quick succession to make sure that the maximum amount of information is available to policyholders and so that they can see and comment on the direction in which his mind is moving.