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Equitable Life

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from "Life" to the end of the Question and add:""also notes the Public Administration Select Committee’s Sixth Report Justice denied? The Government’s response to the Ombudsman’s report on Equitable Life; recognises the vital role the Ombudsman plays in public life; reaffirms the duty of Parliament to support the office of the Ombudsman; recognises the Government’s determination to introduce an ex gratia payment scheme that is administratively quicker and simpler to deliver than that envisaged by the Ombudsman; further welcomes the Government’s decision announced to the House on 20 October 2009 to widen the ex gratia payment scheme to include trapped annuitants who took out policies after mid-1991; urges Sir John Chadwick to report as quickly and expeditiously as possible; and recognises the impact and significant distress that maladministration and injustice have caused in respect of Equitable Life.’."" I start by genuinely welcoming the speech made by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), and the fact that he has triggered this debate. This is a very proper subject for today’s Opposition day debate, and I want to set out a number of responses to some of the points that he made. First, however, I want to echo the apology on behalf of this and previous Governments made by my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who is now Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. I have made two statements already since the House returned earlier this month, as I want to keep right hon. and hon. Members up to date with the Government’s work to clear up the problems of Equitable Life’s past. However, today is the first opportunity for a debate since the judgment in the judicial review brought by the Equitable Life members action group—EMAG—was handed down last week. I promised the House last Monday that I would reflect on the court judgment as quickly as I could. I did that, and I updated the House on the matter yesterday. I should like to elaborate on that statement this afternoon, and try to address the three points that I think are now uppermost in the minds of both Equitable Life policyholders and hon. Members—the scope of the proposed ex gratia scheme, the speed with which we can act, and the fairness of the approach that we propose. Before I go into that, perhaps I should first say a word about the role of the parliamentary ombudsman. In preparing for this debate, I looked back over the comments that I have made in the House on this subject. I think that I underplayed and under-celebrated the role of the ombudsman in public life. This afternoon, I want to put on record my gratitude to her for her work, and I have made sure that that is underlined in the Government amendment. It was only right for the Government to make sure that our response to the ombudsman’s report on Equitable Life was based on a thorough examination of what she said. It is true that we did not wholly agree with her conclusions, but we did agree on many things. Indeed, in nine out of 10 of her findings we agreed wholly or in part with the charge of maladministration, and in five areas we believed that injustice followed.