Equitable Life (Payments) Bill

Part of Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) – in the House of Commons at 6:02 pm on 14 September 2010.

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Photo of Michael Weir Michael Weir Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Business), Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Energy and Climate Change) 6:02, 14 September 2010

The policyholders are entitled to due compensation, and I shall address that point in a moment.

I remind Government Members that the coalition agreement clearly states:

"We will implement the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman's recommendation to make fair and transparent payments to Equitable Life policy holders, through an independent payment scheme, for their relative loss as a consequence of regulatory failure."

Will the Minister tell us how that statement can be reconciled with the letter that the ombudsman has sent to all Members, in which, referring to Sir John Chadwick's recommendations, she states:

"I also explained to him the basis on which I had come to my conclusions and what my recommendation for compensation involved. I am very disappointed therefore to discover that Sir John has explicitly rejected those explanations and that assistance and has substituted his own interpretation of these matters without seeking my further comments."

That is a fairly damning indictment of what is now proposed. I stated in the previous debate on the matter that the failure to support our own ombudsman brought great shame on the previous Parliament, but, if we do not act now to re-establish trust in the system and listen to what our own independent ombudsman says, it will bring shame on this Parliament as well.

Prior to the election the Conservatives were clear in their view, and in March the motion before Members specifically stated that the House

"calls on the Government to set a clear timetable for implementing the Ombudsman's recommendations and remedying the injustice suffered by policyholders."

Regrettably, that does not seem to be what is now proposed; the new Government seem to have pretty much jettisoned the ombudsman's recommendations and adopted the process that the previous Labour Administration were putting in place-a system that the Conservatives roundly condemned prior to the election.

I do not quite share the indignation of Labour Members on this matter, because, if one reads carefully the speech given in the March debate from the now Minister, one discovers that the seeds of the current situation were already sown. He stated:

"The hon. Gentleman refers to the bill for compensation, but no one knows how big that will be. That figure will be part of the outcome of the process that the Government launched back in January last year. He will know, from reading the ombudsman's report, that her recommendations on compensation had two important caveats-that payments to policyholders should reflect relative loss but that the impact of any compensation bill on the public purse should be borne in mind."-[ Hansard, 16 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 744.]

It seems to me, however, that only the second part of that statement is now the overriding consideration, and that the question of the amount of compensation has little to do with relative loss, being concerned purely with the perceived state of the public finances. We have moved on from means-testing the victims to means-testing the Government before deciding the level of compensation.

The problem with that approach is that it sets a very dangerous precedent. The Government, through the regulator, were responsible for what happened at Equitable Life, and the maladministration that occurred led directly to the losses suffered by the policyholders. However, the Government are effectively going to cap the amount of compensation at what they think that they can afford and, worse still, as part of a comprehensive spending review that is expected to impose swingeing cuts on all Departments.

I wonder how I would get on if I drove my car into a Porsche, causing many thousands of pounds worth of damage, and said "Sorry for your loss, but I can only afford to pay a small proportion of the damage." I suspect that any court in the land would give me very short shrift. It is a principle well established that those who have caused the damage are due to make recompense. That principle appears to have been watered down in the case of Equitable Life policyholders, and, as Frank Dobson said, that is not the case for other victims of financial circumstances.

In previous speeches, the Minister has praised the Equitable Members Action Group for its excellent work in keeping the matter in the public eye, and rightly so. Given that, we should take on board the very real concerns about what is now proposed. The group has made clear its concerns in three main areas, including the continued reliance on the Chadwick process, the remit of which was devised by the previous Government and clearly intended to minimise payouts. Indeed, the previous Administration did not accept many of the ombudsman's findings, coming up instead with a system of ex gratia payments to which many of us objected at the time. We in the SNP and Plaid Cymru supported Liberals and Tories in that objection. The important point is that the basis on which Sir John Chadwick was carrying out his work was that adopted by the previous Government. I remind Government Members that they supported the recommendations of the ombudsman in their manifestos and the coalition agreement.

The losses are to be calculated by the Treasury and not by the independent commission, and indeed the very basis on which that is to happen is moving from the relative loss identified by the ombudsman to an absolute loss method adopted by Chadwick. That reiterates the importance of debating the terms of the scheme on the Floor of the House. Furthermore, the commission is left with the unenviable task of distributing inadequate compensation, having had no say in calculating the true losses.

The policyholders of Equitable Life were treated shamefully by the previous Government. In opposition, the coalition parties promised to take action, but unless they tackle the concerns raised by policyholders and the ombudsman, this issue will continue to undermine the standing of this Parliament, faith in our ombudsman service and, as was pointed out, the continuing faith of all our constituents in saving for their futures; they might not be assured that their savings will be protected when investing with apparently reputable companies.

I urge Ministers, even at this late stage, to address these issues and come forward with a scheme that will bring this sad debacle to a just end. We should be given the opportunity to debate the scheme on the Floor of the House, so that we can be assured, and we can assure our constituents, that everything possible is being done for the unfortunate victims.