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Equitable Life

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr. Caton. So much has been written and said over the last few years about the collapse of Equitable Life that I begin this debate with some trepidation, especially as the previous debate in this House was barely a month ago and was introduced by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis). Although our political perspectives are very different, he is a Member of this House for whom I have the greatest respect. Today, I wish to make a further attempt to advance the just cause of many of my constituents who have been so badly affected by what has happened to Equitable Life, and whose lives have been altered radically as a result. I am certain that I am not alone in that. The debate of 19 May showed how many hon. Members take a close interest in the issue. My aim is not simply to repeat that and other debates, but to add something new from the experiences of my constituents, and to give other hon. Members the chance to make contributions. My most important aim is to persuade the Government to agree to the recommendations of the parliamentary ombudsman's original report, "Equitable Life: a decade of regulatory failure", which was published in July 2008. Since the publication of that report, the Public Administration Committee has produced a report entitled, "Justice Delayed" on 11 December 2008 and just last month, on 5 May, the parliamentary ombudsman published a further report, "Injustice unremedied: the Government's response on Equitable Life". There is no shortage of reports, just a shortage of justice for those who, through no fault of their own, have suffered huge losses in the life savings that they accrued over years of hard work. Surely that cannot be right. I admit that, like many hon. Members who until recently knew little about how all this came about, I was not very sympathetic at first. However, as it became clear that, as much as the world's oldest mutual insurance company had overstretched itself, the real issue was poor regulation, I became more and more concerned and so more and more interested in what my constituents were telling me. I suspect that that experience has echoed around the whole House and that there is not one hon. Member who has not received correspondence from their constituents about Equitable Life. That is reflected by the attendance at this debate. It may be helpful if I reiterate a brief history of how this disaster came about before I recount some of the personal tragedies that resulted from the poor management and disastrous regulation of Equitable Life.