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Equitable Life

As I said earlier, we need to see what the bill is. There is a big difference between the Conservatives and Labour on this. In the past few years, the Government have sought first to block the second inquiry, then to frustrate the work of the ombudsman and then to delay their response and the payment of compensation to policyholders. The Conservatives have been clear from the outset, when the ombudsman published her report, that we accepted her findings and wanted justice to be done. That is the difference between the Conservatives and Labour, and that is why Labour Back Benchers should be wary of the Government's amendment to the motion. When the Government did not give an immediate response to the ombudsman's report, we saw the third stage of their strategy on Equitable Life—delay. Despite the commitment that the Prime Minister gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham that there would be""a statement before the House rises at Christmas"—[Official Report, 3 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 38.]" nothing happened until the middle of 2009, nearly six months after the ombudsman's report was published. That is when we finally got their response, and we must ask why they did not respond more quickly to the report. There was a time when the Prime Minister would have been very quick to criticise delays in responding to reports. In 1989, he said:""I must ask why we have had to rely on the ombudsman to confirm the mismanagement, maladministration and incompetence that was widely known about more than one year ago."—[Official Report, 19 December 1989; Vol. 164, c. 204.]" When he was in opposition, the now Prime Minister made his name by championing the cause of Barlow Clowes' shareholders and investors. He made that statement calling for action when the then Government had announced their compensation scheme, but here we are, 18 months after the ombudsman reported maladministration in the regulation of Equitable Life, still awaiting the details of a scheme as well as a timetable.