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Equitable Life

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on introducing the debate and making use of this Opposition day to outline, as other hon. Members have said, what could have been done differently by the Government. It is very important to have this debate, carrying on from our previous debate in Westminster Hall. I thus congratulate my hon. Friend on his use of Opposition day time and, of course, on his excellent introduction and the way in which he framed this afternoon’s debate. I also pay tribute, as have others, to the Equitable members action group, to the all-party group and the Select Committee, which has examined the issue in detail. I also mention the work of the ombudsman: although at least one other hon. Member has commented on how long that took, it is nevertheless part of the process of getting us to where we are today. Hon. Members of all parties have been assiduous in pursuing this issue on behalf of individual constituents, but also because most of us are motivated, I hope, by a sense of justice in all we do. I sometimes think that there is little more than a great injustice—whether it be to an individual or to a whole group of people—that can motivate MPs in taking hold of particular issues and not letting them go. This situation falls into the category of a whole group, as many people across the country are affected by the issue and they will continue to be affected by it until they have some form of resolution. I am pleased that so many Members have had the courage of their convictions and signed early-day motion 1423, which I hope is a statement of intent for later today. What we are debating today is essentially the same principles as are in the motion. Although I understand that Labour Members find themselves in some difficulty in thinking about how to vote on an Opposition day motion, I hope that they can set it aside, because, as has been said, today provides our only opportunity. While many hon. Members have expressed a hope that the Government will bring something forward to return to the issue later on, I have to say that the evidence thus far does not lead me to the conclusion that that will happen. This may well be the only opportunity that the House has in the near future to get something on the record and have a vote on this crucial issue. I urge Labour Members—I understand their difficulty—to carry through what they have already done in signing the early-day motion. In 2000, what happened through Equitable Life’s default was hugely painful for all those who had invested, but those involved in the mismanagement of the funds are not solely to blame. The Government as a regulator and the agencies that the Government established to regulate financial matters have been shown, sadly, to have failed time and again in recent years. We must be absolutely clear that those failures were under the watch of this Government and their predecessor, as they looked into what was going on in Equitable Life. The people who invested in good faith expected the regulatory mechanisms to guarantee their interests, so they feel very let down. They have, of course, been let down particularly badly. What action, then, can we take finally to offer some justice? The Government say that ex gratia payments are an adequate mechanism for providing that, but I am not convinced that they are. Members of the action group, who have acted very effectively on behalf of all the Equitable members, certainly do not feel that that is the case. Of course, whatever happens will cost money, but as other hon. Members have said, the Government have found the money in other circumstances—to bail out the banks, for example. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham made the point that investors in banks found their interests protected and he asked why Equitable members should not also find their interests protected in the same way. Money has also been squandered in other recent Government pet projects—on big IT projects and certain foreign adventures have been launched against the demonstrated will of the people living out there in the relevant countries. Money has been found for those things, but not, it seems, in this case. It may well be painful to find the resources to provide this measure of justice, as we are being invited to do, but however difficult it is, the central issue is natural justice and it must be met. At every turn, the Government have dragged their heels. Many Members have sought to focus on the imperative to get this issue dealt with as soon as possible because some of the people involved are, sadly, no longer with us—and there are others who, sadly, will not live to see the benefit of any compensation scheme. We must not allow any imperative to act against the issues of fairness that EMAG has raised all along. In other fields, I know that the Government have sought to speed the processes up. Sometimes, in my view, they have done so against the interest of securing the right resolution. In a planning Bill of a couple of years ago, for example, there was an absolute dedication to getting all major infrastructure planning issues sorted out in six months; what is important to me, however, is reaching the right decisions in these circumstances. Yes, time is important, but it is not the only thing that we have to consider. I have been in regular correspondence with a number of my constituents affected by Equitable Life. There are about 50 or so of them, but I well know that there are many more in my constituency who have not contacted me about it. They have contacted EMAG and may be cynical about whether they will ever get the resolution they want and deserve. In every one of our constituencies, there are so many people affected, and they are watching what we are discussing here this afternoon. I spoke to a couple of constituents this morning. What touched me is that they both prefaced their remarks by saying, "Others are far worse off than I am. Others are going to be affected worse. My retirement plans have been affected, as has my ability to do things like replace my car, which is currently on its last legs, but I have lost only £9,000"—and in the other case, it was between £13,000 and £14,000. Those are significant sums for those people, but I thought it revealing that they adopted the approach of talking about others who were even worse off than themselves. We clearly need a scheme that is reasonable and takes account of the constraints on resourcing, but it must also compensate properly and it must not be a token effort. In order to be reassured that that is the case, it needs to be overseen, as my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham said earlier, by an independent tribunal. He set out how that could happen without setting aside the work put in up to now.