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Equitable Life

The Equitable Life debacle will go down as one of the great shames of this Parliament. It appears that we could not even support our own independent ombudsman against the Executive. My hackles were particularly raised by the Government amendment, which would make the resolution state that the House""recognises the vital role the Ombudsman plays in public life; reaffirms the duty of Parliament to support the office of the Ombudsman"." That is exactly what Parliament has not done in this case. The Chief Secretary was all reasonableness today, but the Government had to be dragged through the courts kicking and screaming before there was any action to do justice to Equitable Life policyholders. No one could have been in any doubt after the ombudsman's report that the Government had a case to answer regarding the actions or inaction of the regulators, leading to the downfall of the company. The matter has now dragged on for almost 10 years—longer than I have been a Member of the House. I do not intend to rake over the coals of what went wrong. Many others have mentioned that. What is needed now is urgent action to right a wrong. Like all Members, I have among my constituents a significant number of Equitable Life policyholders, most now elderly, who have suffered significantly. Sadly, some have died waiting for justice. The problem goes much deeper than that, and it is a problem for the whole House. It has not gone unnoticed outside this place how policyholders have been treated, compared with the speed of action on the banks. As others have said, that has undermined the case for savings and private pension provision, which are important for the future and which will come back to haunt successive Governments unless something is done quickly to deal with the situation. I suspect it is too late to bring back confidence. When the Government said that they were going to apologise, there was real hope that action would finally be taken to end the saga. It was therefore a considerable let-down, to put it mildly, when all that was announced was yet another investigation under Sir John Chadwick into how a compensation scheme would work. I recall that, in January last year, in a Westminster hall debate following that statement, I said:""The more cynical among us might consider that statement as putting a decision beyond the next general election."—[Official Report, 27 January 2009; Vol. 487, c. 36WH.]" It turns out that I was not being cynical at all. That is exactly what will happen. The final Chadwick report will not be available until May and, according to the Minister, an announcement on a scheme will be made 14 days thereafter. I find it strange that, after all this time and all the reports, there is to be a sudden burst of action within 14 days to produce a fully formed scheme to deal with the problems. Even now, pertinent questions remain that are not being answered. We need to know when payments are to be made. Will there be another period of inaction or will they be made quickly after the Government decide what they are doing? Will they be made by the end of May, by the end of June, or by some other date? Perhaps the Exchequer Secretary can clarify that when she sums up. It was interesting that the Chief Secretary was unwilling or unable to give any indication of the time scale of payment. That is what people want to know. They have waited years, and many of them are suffering badly. They want to know what they will get, and when, in order to draw a line under the whole sad saga. It is not at all clear, at least to me, who will receive compensation. It may be only those who have suffered disproportionately. I note that, in its briefing for this debate, EMAG says:""Ex-gratia payments, it is proposed by the Treasury's remit, will be further limited to only those who suffered 'disproportionate impact'—now defined as With Profit Annuitants and those late-joiners who put in new money after 1998."" Will the Exchequer Secretary please clarify exactly what is meant by "disproportionate"? Means-testing has been mentioned several times during the debate, but again we still do not have a clear picture of what is proposed. Both Sir John and the Minister have said that it would not be possible to look at the individual means of every claimant, but a means test is not being specifically ruled out. We need some clarity about how that will be done. If the Minister is to respond within 14 days, the Government must have some idea what they are going to do, whether or not they have received the final report. Moreover, we are not sure which losses are directly due to maladministration, which seems to be another anchor on the scheme.