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Equitable Life

Many of my constituents in Shrewsbury who are Equitable Life policyholders have come to see me in my surgery. Their sheer frustration and misery as a result of what has happened led me, together with the hon. Members for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) and for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer), to set up the all-party group for justice for Equitable Life policyholders. I am very grateful that various people have referred to the work that we have tried to do on a cross-party basis to bring this issue to the forefront of parliamentary debate. I am particularly pleased that we are having this debate today, and that the Conservative party should have used one of its Opposition days to enable us to discuss these issues still further. To begin with, I was extremely concerned that Sir John Chadwick would not come to see us and interact with us. I was appalled that a person in his position could disregard Parliament and parliamentarians and behave in such a way, but we finally managed to get him and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to speak to the all-party group on 24 February. I have never seen a room more crowded than on that day. It was standing room only. It was so encouraging to see how many Members of Parliament, from all political parties, tried to attend to the meeting on behalf of their constituents. They wanted to put questions directly to the Minister and Sir John Chadwick, and I am very pleased that we have been able to distribute to every Member of Parliament copies of the questions posed and of the replies that we received from the Minister. What concerned me profoundly is that, when the Minister left the meeting, we then interviewed the current chief executive of Equitable Life, Mr. Chris Wiscarson. He said, in front of all of us, that he had written repeatedly to the Minister asking to interact with him and his Department. He wanted various forms of communication to take place between Equitable Life and the Minister's Department, but he told all of the MPs assembled that not only had he received no reply, he had received no acknowledgement whatsoever. The Minister stood at that Dispatch Box this afternoon and said repeatedly how important the process is, and how passionately he believes in trying to resolve it in a speedy and timely manner. However, if those are his genuine views, he needs to sit down with Mr. Wiscarson very soon: he must afford the current chief executive of Equitable Life the opportunity of a meeting to put forward his concerns and suggestions.