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Equitable Life

This has been a high-quality and important debate and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on kicking it off and setting exactly the right tone for the subsequent deliberations. All hon. Members who had the opportunity to participate—my hon. Friends the Members for Solihull (Lorely Burt) and for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) among them—spoke movingly about how these issues affect real people. It is easy to get wrapped up in the process and in which Committee said what about which report, but we should always remember that hundreds of people in each of our constituencies have had their quality of life materially affected by the matter that we are deliberating this afternoon. Others touched on the role of the ombudsman and the importance that we should all attach to upholding the integrity of that position. That point was made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan), but it was also made by the Chairman of the Committee on which she serves, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). Several hon. Members talked about the incentive to save and how important that is, particularly as over the years ahead we will move from having a higher proportion of people beyond retirement age in relation to those who are of working age, and how we as a country must ensure that people are given the greatest possible incentive to save and how that incentive is undermined if people do not feel that they have confidence in the mechanisms that enable them to save. That point was made by the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton), who plays a prominent role in the all-party group, and by others. Some, like my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett), talked about the wider economic context, including incentives to save. Finally, the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) spoke—accurately, in my view—about how many savers saw Equitable Life as a gold standard institution. These were not people who put their savings in a place where they expected to take a high risk to achieve a high return; they were seeking to be responsible in quite a cautious way, so it is particularly unfortunate that they should find themselves in these circumstances. However, the one thing that I would say, respectfully, to the hon. Member for Angus is that I am not at all sure, were we to have independence in Scotland, that his constituents would be compensated any more speedily, if at all.