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Equitable Life

I apologise for not being present at the start of the debate; I had to attend a pressing constituency meeting. I set up the all-party group on justice for Equitable Life policyholders primarily because of my belief in the parliamentary ombudsman system. We must protect the ombudsman’s findings, and she has stated unequivocally that there has been regulatory failure. We as parliamentarians have to do everything possible to ensure that her findings and her position are respected in this House. As a constituency MP, I rely on ombudsmen on many occasions to assist me with difficulties that constituents are facing. The ombudsmen work so hard and do such sterling work that I wish to pay tribute to all of them. If their views are ignored, that simply chips away at their position and undermines them. The all-party group has become very large, as many Members of Parliament have joined it. I wish to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton), who is my co-chairman, to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer), who plays an active part in the group, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), who takes a great interest in it and comes to our meetings. Some 42 Labour Members of Parliament have joined the group, some of whom represent key marginal seats. I will be watching closely how they vote this evening, because they have joined an all-party group that seeks justice for Equitable Life policyholders and I do not see how someone who is a member of such a group can vote against this Liberal Democrat motion. As has been stated on many occasions, Equitable Life policyholders have suffered terrible financial problems and are very frustrated by the lack of action. As we have also heard today, every day 15 of those policyholders die. My other main gripe is with Sir John Chadwick. I do not mind telling you, Madam Deputy Speaker—although I will probably get into terrible trouble for saying this—that I have called for his resignation, such is my frustration with him and with his refusal to interact with the all-party group. I get very concerned when people who have been appointed by the Government, and who have such extraordinarily important roles to play and who are working on issues that affect so many of our constituents simply refuse to come to the House of Commons to interact with parliamentarians. We are trying to represent our constituents by trying to lobby Sir John. He has stated that we can write to him like anybody else—but that is simply not enough. As a democratically elected parliamentarian who represents 74,000 constituents, I demand to have the opportunity to call him before us and to engage with him. His approach shows great arrogance on his part, and I very much regret that. The other thing that I wish briefly to say is how disappointed I am with the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), who is no longer in his place. He intervened on the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) to say that tonight’s vote would, of course, be on party lines. What a disappointment that is. The right hon. Gentleman must have Equitable Life policyholders in his constituency who have been affected by these events, and one would think that Labour MPs would, as happened in the Gurkha debate, show conviction by voting against the Labour party. I have voted against the Conservative party on one occasion—over the privatisation of Royal Mail—although it is difficult to vote against one’s own party and it takes a great deal of courage. I might write about it in my memoirs—