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Equitable Life

I shall be very brief, as I know that other Members wish to speak. I fervently hope that we are now reaching the end of this decade-long saga, in which 30,000 people have died waiting for justice. One million investors have lost up to half their pensions, amounting to an estimated £5 billion, and they were people who did the right thing: they saved for their retirement, but they have been let down by a series of regulatory failures by this Government. What does this mean in human terms, however? I shall explain by recounting just two stories that west midlands Equitable Life investors have told me. It means a couple having to sell their lovely retirement bungalow and move into a caravan. It means that instead of going to the shops with enough money to be able to enjoy the experience of shopping and buying what was described to me as "nice things", they have to scratch around for the cheapest reduced items just to make ends meet. It may not mean destitution in many cases, but for most of such people it means the destruction of a quality of life that they saved for, made sacrifices for and deserved. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) has outlined the history of this sorry episode and I will not repeat it now. I do not want to dwell on the shameful history of how this Government have prevaricated ever since the publication of ombudsman Ann Abraham’s report in July 2008, so aptly subtitled "A decade of regulatory failure", although I entirely share her frustration at the prevarication of the Government in their response, which prompted her to take the unprecedented step of issuing a second report this May, called "Injustice unremedied". I am not going to dwell on the Government’s response, which was to attempt to exclude up to 90 per cent. of pensioners from any compensation at all, but I do wonder how a Government who purport to be a compassionate Government could allow so many people to suffer for so long, ignoring the ombudsman’s findings and trying to evade paying compensation. I welcome the decision of Lord Justice Carnwath and Mr. Justice Gross backing the decision of the ombudsman that compensation should be paid back to 1991, not 1995 as the Government wanted, and I implore Sir John Chadwick to come up with a compensation scheme with the utmost urgency so that as few more pensioners as possible have to die without ever seeing justice in their lifetimes. I ask the Minister to say what will happen in respect of pensioners who have died. My understanding is that their money will be forfeited altogether, so that neither they nor their surviving relatives will ever benefit. If this is the case, is there any provision for making some compensation available to their estate even when, because of the great length of time this has taken, it is not only they but their families who would otherwise lose out? Finally, as a final act of compassion, I ask the Government to ensure that a compensation scheme will be in place and payments will already be being made by the time they leave office and we have a general election next year.