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Equitable Life

This has been a good debate, and I am delighted that we Conservatives tabled the motion for discussion today. It shows the importance that we attach to the issue of Equitable Life; after all, this is likely to be the last debate in Opposition time on Treasury matters before the election. We could have called for a debate on the record-breaking deficit, on the longest recession of any G20 country, on the Government's flip-flopping on ruling out rises in VAT or on the slide of the pound, but instead we chose to debate Equitable Life. The whole Equitable Life saga serves as an allegory for the Government Treasury team's whole approach to the economy—saying that there are hard choices to make and then not making them. They are dithering rather than taking action; they promise that things will be sorted out, but put off paying the money until another day. I should mention the many scores of my own constituents—51 in the past 18 months alone—who have written to me about their own difficulties as Equitable Life policyholders. I have read harrowing letters detailing lives blighted and retirement dreams dashed. This is not the first time that we have debated Equitable Life in the House. I have gone through the various pledges made by the Government in the last debate on the issue, in October. To be fair, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury took a huge number of interventions during that debate, as he did this time. Frankly, however, he deserved his battering—so weak was his case and so unable or unwilling was he to answer any questions. I want to quote his response during the last debate to an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who asked whether the Government would go into this election""having to say to Equitable Life policyholders, 'We have not agreed any compensation for you'"." He was told, weakly, by the Chief Secretary:""I hope that we will not be in that position."—[Official Report, 21 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 934.]" But that is exactly his position as we go into this election.