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Equitable Life

I am staggered but absolutely delighted to be called so early, Mr. Caton. As an independent, I have not had to choose where to go this afternoon, because other independents are speaking, I hope, in the debate in the main Chamber. I relish this opportunity and thank you for calling me. Like many hon. Members, I have a large number of constituents who have suffered from the situation under discussion. The number of letters that I have received on the matter competes with that on any other affair in which I have been involved. The correspondence goes back a long time, and many of the people who have been writing have been persistent. What makes the situation so bad is that it has been such a rollercoaster. There have been moments of deep gloom, and moments of slight optimism. When the ombudsman's report came out after four years of investigation, there was hope and optimism, but it was transient. There was an apology, but, as we know from the health service, an apology is easy to give but means nothing if it does not lead to action. Action and, obviously, compensation are needed. In the few minutes available to me, I want to read some quotes from some of the letters that I, like the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton), have received. I wish to remind the House and the Minister of people's anger and complete frustration. This is from a letter dated 19 January that was written following the Commons statement:""Yes I would like to comment but will keep these comments brief least my disappointment makes my 'pen' run red. I consider the statement, some 10 years in the making was abysmal. It was deliberately vague, timescales are non-existent and it depends on public finances…Maybe they hope that if they can defer any payment for another 10 years, the remaining members will have died or will not be able to remember that Equitable Life even existed."" Another long letter, of which I will read only a little, mentions the personal loss by a couple who had put all their savings into Equitable Life on the advice of various Governments and trusted regulatory bodies. Their pension expectation is now less than 20 per cent. of what they thought it would be. They make a cutting comment:""While the government merely sat back and absolved itself of all responsibility, its only action was to resolve the issue as far as their own members were concerned granting all MPs, many of whom had entrusted their own pensions to Equitable Life, a generous and secure pension funded by myself and other taxpayers."" The letter continued:""I also find it sad that the cost of any request for justice must inevitably fall on the taxpayer and am therefore reluctant to pursue this issue.""