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Equitable Life

This Government have done many, many things of which I am immensely proud. They have done nothing of which I am more ashamed than their handling of, and prevarication over, Equitable Life. The problem with Equitable Life was always to balance speed with fairness and to ensure that the scope of the compensation was correct. The hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban), who spoke for the Opposition, was correct to criticise the Government's failure adequately to grasp the urgency with which the Government ought to have responded to the ombudsman's report in July 2008. The Government amendment states that the""establishment of an ex gratia payment scheme, and the terms of reference given to Sir John Chadwick were a rational response to the Ombudsman's report"." How weak. They were a "rational" response. They were not appropriate, or sympathetic, or moral, but they were rational—if the end that one wished to achieve was to minimise the cost and delay the payments. Rationality is always important and necessary, but it is scarcely ever sufficient in matters of public policy. In 2002, I believe, I spoke in the first debate on Equitable Life and urged swift action then. In 2008, when the ombudsman presented her report, the Government were wrong to consider that it was reasonable to delay a further six months before responding and then to challenge her findings in the court. The Government acted as though they believed that the clock started when the ombudsman produced her report in July 2008. In fact, for policyholders the clock had started in 2001. It has now been running for nine years and during that time many policyholders—some 40,000, according to Treasury advice—have now died. The Government have suggested in their amendment that""there is a strong case for policyholders who have passed away to be included"." It is of course right that the estates of the deceased should benefit, but that is of little comfort to those who each month draw closer to the end of their lives without the financial means for which they had prudently planned and saved. The hon. Member for Fareham has indicated that he accepts that we are, in his words, "where we are". He also made it clear that an incoming Conservative Government would accept and continue with the Sir John Chadwick process. Insofar as that is the case, I find the Opposition motion as it stands to be somewhat confused, because it refers to implementing "the Ombudsman's recommendations". Earlier, I asked the hon. Member for Fareham to clarify the matter by saying whether his party intended to do anything in addition to Chadwick, perhaps by implementing elements of the ombudsman's recommendations on top of Chadwick. I also asked what the timetable might be. The answer that I received was that it would be Chadwick, and that implementation would occur early in the early in the life of the next Government. That strikes me as the common position of both the Government and the official Opposition. That being the case, I would simply press for additional steps to be taken, and in particular for interim payments to be made to surviving policyholders as soon as possible after we have all seen the Chadwick report.