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Equitable Life

The hon. Gentleman is right. It is also right that we should have this discussion. Having made a decision, the Government should put their case in the best way that they can, and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary is doing that. He made some important points about the mechanics of delivering redress systems, but the fundamental points are still at issue. Only the House can come to a view on those. The ombudsman has settled views on how redress should follow from findings of maladministration leading to injustice. Redress is part of the system. We are not compensating for the mismanagement of the Equitable Life company, or for what happened to the markets that made life more difficult than it would have been otherwise for policyholders, but we are compensating for that element of serial regulatory failure that contributed to what happened to those policyholders. It was only late in the day during the ombudsman’s inquiries that the Government suddenly announced the doctrine that they would not compensate for regulatory failure. The ombudsman rightly said to that, "Well, I wish that the Government had said that at the beginning of my inquiry." When she was carrying out her inquiry, those bodies were not immune from ombudsman investigation or from paying compensation for regulatory failure. The principle that the ombudsman advances is the same as the principle she advances in every other case that she investigates. When she finds maladministration by a public body, the people affected should be put back into the position that they would have been in had the maladministration not occurred. She has applied exactly the same principle in this case as in every other case that she investigates. The question for the House—I keep saying "for the House" because it is for the House to decide and not the Government—is whether it wants to adhere to that principle or not. If it does, it will have to go with the ombudsman’s principle of redress in this case, which would mean that all those who have suffered loss as a result of maladministration must have some remedy. When the Government say, on seeing the big numbers, "We will only, for the sake of charity, compensate those who have suffered disproportionately," the ombudsman rightly says that that is not consistent with the principles of her office. The fundamental point is that we have to decide, not as party people—that is how we do everything else in this place and it often demeans us—but as House people, whether we want to assert the integrity of the office of the parliamentary ombudsman, which this House established more than 40 years ago, or want to see it progressively undermined. That is the fundamental issue and that is why I shall support the motion, although as I said earlier, I wish that we were having a free vote on the ombudsman’s report itself.