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Equitable Life

Well, it can be and, indeed, it should be. Let me try to anticipate the Government’s concerns. In addition to the two broad principles that I have sketched out—the human concerns and the constitutional concerns—a third issue arises: money and finance. There is common ground on the fact that that must be relevant when we are talking about large amounts of compensation, but we have crossed a bridge in the sense that the ombudsman has accepted that the public purse is a factor that must be borne in mind in compensation awards and the Government have accepted, through their ex gratia payments proposal, that there has to be compensation. The principle that there is an issue to address has been accepted on both sides. We are now united on the broad principle that finance is a factor, but that the Government agree that there must be public expenditure. We are arguing about how that mechanism will be introduced. Let us consider where the debate has reached in the past year. Our view, in moving this motion, is that the principles under which the ombudsman’s findings must be implemented must include, as she said, an "independent" process, which means a tribunal-like process independent of the Government and independent of the Treasury. The Government’s view is that compensation should be decided through a process led by, determined by and ultimately decided by the Government—the Treasury. That is now the fundamental distinction. In a way, that explains the heart of the constitutional problem: if the Government decide how we remedy a fault of theirs, wherein lies the independence of the ombudsman? That independence simply disappears.