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Equitable Life

There is a reasonable spread of Members here from all parties. I would hope that perhaps Parliament could do that, under the leadership of our new Speaker. Let me finish my remarks, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman will want to come in, if he is able to. In the end, of course, the state will have to foot the bill, thus increasing the cost to all of us through higher taxation. It is imperative that we are able to save, and able to save reliably, knowing that our money will not be wasted or disappear through incompetence. It has been said that this scandal affected only the well-off and that ordinary people with relatively small savings were not involved. Let me remind hon. Members and the Government that EMAG told the Public Administration Committee that""the majority of Equitable Life's policyholders had modest sized pensions and were not 'fat cats' who 'risked their money to get above average returns'. In particular, the average investment of the half million individual policyholders amounted to £45,000 each, which in today's money would buy a pension paying around £75 per week."" To conclude, I ask the Minister these questions. Will she amend Sir John Chadwick's terms of reference to include all the recommendations of the parliamentary ombudsman's report, "Equitable Life: a decade of regulatory failure"? Will she agree to implement the proposal put by EMAG that Parliament sets a total amount of compensation for individual policyholders affected by the collapse of Equitable Life, and then allows the proposed tribunal to get on with the job of distributing the money quickly and fairly? Will she accept that the delay caused so far has meant that many policyholders, who suffered through no fault of their own, have either endured financial hardship or have died in the meantime? I believe that up to 15 people die each week.