Equitable Life (Payments) Bill

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on her maiden speech. As a Macclesfield man, I thought I knew everything there was to know about Congleton, but I certainly learned a thing or two from her thoughtful and informative contribution.

I start by declaring an interest. As a former policyholder in Equitable Life, I have held a keen and personal interest in the matter for a long time. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate and would like to take the chance to talk about the human element to this saga. When immersing oneself in this subject, it is all too easy to get caught up in the highly technical details of legal complexity, maladministration and commercial misjudgment, but it is very important to remember that it involves real pain for real people. Since being elected, I do not think a single day has gone by without my receiving one letter or e-mail from constituents who have been affected by the failure of Equitable Life. I recently had one lady in my constituency surgery crying while telling me about the difficulties she had faced owing to this mess—crying out of worry, despair and sheer frustration at the length of this debacle, which felt like it was going to drag on for ever. I share her frustration. It has been nearly 10 years since Equitable Life policies were cut in value, leading to pension reductions of sometimes up to a third. For 10 years, 1.5 million people have been waiting for compensation. Some have even died waiting; as we heard earlier, approximately 30,000 have done so. Is it any wonder that faith in our politics has fallen to an all-time low over the past decade?

Who are the people who have been waiting? We are not talking about the über-wealthy, nor are we talking about the reckless investors. The 1.5 million victims of the failure of Equitable Life are ordinary people. They did the right thing, putting money aside and trying to save for their future. I am certain that all Members of this House can agree that we should be encouraging a return to a savings culture in this country. I would submit that the falling confidence in our pensions system and the endless delays in resolving the Equitable tragedy are not entirely unconnected. It is only right that policyholders are given justice, and as soon as possible. Failure to do so would only further undermine confidence in pensions saving. For that reason, I welcome this Bill and give it my full support.

The contrast between the actions of this Government and the previous one could not be sharper. While Labour did its best to drag its feet and dither, the new Government have worked swiftly and shown that they will honour the commitments made in opposition. This Bill does not mark the end of the Equitable Life story, but it is, at long last, putting that end in sight. I am very encouraged that Ministers are clear that there is much more to do and are committed to seeing a fair outcome for all. It is absolutely right that they have taken time to reflect on Sir John Chadwick’s report and have sought the views of others.

For an issue as complicated as this, it is pleasing that the Bill is short and simple—for a simple man such as me—in giving the Treasury powers to make compensation payments to policyholders without pre-determining the level of compensation that should be paid. This should have been done years ago. If Labour had not spent its years in government endlessly delaying, it would have saved hundreds of thousands of people a great deal of anguish, and compensation could have been awarded in a less difficult economic period. Unfortunately, the previous Government used an absurd argument for not establishing a compensation scheme on the basis of their general responsibility to taxpayers. If one were to accept that argument, then surely compensation could never be paid in any circumstances when a public body was found to be responsible for financial loss and injustice—or perhaps compensation could be paid if the financial loss were relatively small and insignificant. Clearly, such arguments are ridiculous.

I am pleased that such arguments are over and that, even in a time of deeply constrained finances, the Government are working to bring justice for many of my constituents who are policyholders. The Bill is an essential measure in bringing about this justice, and I am delighted to support it.

Finance Bill

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech, and I offer you my belated congratulations on your new appointment, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Despite not being the first Member to represent Weaver Vale, I am the first ever to give a maiden speech. My predecessor, Mike Hall, had already given his maiden speech as the Member for Warrington, South five years before this constituency was created in 1997. Although it is conventional to pay tribute to one’s predecessor in a maiden speech, Mike, who was never one for convention, said of his Conservative predecessor for Warrington South, Chris Butler, after what must have been a particularly bitterly fought contest, that

“it would be hypocritical of me to pass favourable comments on Mr. Butler.”—[Official Report, 6 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 123.]

However, during my three years as a candidate trying my best to unseat Mike Hall, he was always extremely courteous to me, and I do not believe it would be hypocritical of me to pay tribute to the work that he did for the constituency. Although perhaps not the most high-profile of Members here in Westminster, he was highly regarded as a hard-working constituency MP for Weaver Vale. We shared similar interests in football and military history. Despite the views of his Labour colleagues on Halton council, we were in wholehearted agreement in our opposition to wind turbines being built on Frodsham marshes, as well as to the numerous incinerator applications across Cheshire. I was sorry to learn that Mike was forced to stand down owing to ill health and I wish him and his wife Lesley a long and happy retirement.

Weaver Vale is a rather unusual constituency in both its shape and character. Thanks to its ambiguous name, many Members have expressed a little confusion as to its whereabouts. The seat is located in the heart of Cheshire, focused around the River Weaver, a tributary of the River Mersey. It stretches from Northwich in the south-east to Runcorn in the north-west. It is a source of considerable pride that, on this side of the House, I am the sole representative on the Mersey estuary, although I am delighted that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) is to be working with the coalition.

Weaver Vale has an impressive and proud industrial history. Northwich, the largest town, is based on salt mining, which started in pre-Roman times. Imperial Chemical Industries was started in Northwich and one of its founders, Sir John Brunner, was a former Member of Parliament for the area. While ICI may be no more, Brunner Mond is still based in Northwich, and the chemical industry is still going strong in Runcorn, as well.

While traditional heavy industry is very much part of the landscape in the constituency, we have the added benefit of a wide range of high-tech industries at Daresbury, including robotics and nanotechnology. Indeed, Global BioDiagnostics has just announced that it will be moving its research and development to Daresbury, making it the home of the global fight against tuberculosis. The laboratory and the science and innovation campus are at the cutting-edge of science, as well as an essential provider of local jobs.

I firmly believe that these genuinely wealth-creating industries, both old and new, are going to be instrumental in leading the recovery. With this in mind, I am delighted to be giving my maiden speech in this debate on the Finance Bill, following the emergency Budget which has already helped to restore considerable market confidence with the message that Britain is open for business again. In particular, the plans for a regional growth fund and the substantial reduction in employer national insurance contributions in targeted areas demonstrate that this Bill is good news for industry and for the north of England.

Besides its industry, Weaver Vale has some of the most beautiful countryside and picturesque villages anywhere in the country—villages such as Crowton, Acton Bridge, Kingsley, Norley and Manley. Most distinctive of all is Helsby Hill and the surrounding settlements of Helsby and Frodsham. However, Weaver Vale is also a seat of sharp contrasts. Besides vibrant enterprise and leafy villages, there are areas of severe deprivation. Within Runcorn alone, the disparity is breathtaking. In the Windmill Hill area, only 8.1% of pupils achieve 5 GCSEs including maths and English. Those pupils can expect to live for nearly 10 years less and to earn an average of £30,000 a year less than my constituents who live in the more prosperous parts of Runcorn.

The gap would be even wider if Windmill Hill were compared with some of the prosperous commuter villages such as Hartford or Kingsmead. After 13 years of a Labour Government, this is quite simply a disgrace and should act as a constant reminder to those on the Labour Benches, who have already begun looking back on their time in government as some sort of golden age in which poverty and inequality were abolished. Sadly, the truth is that, under Labour, the poor got poorer while the debt grew bigger. Labour Members will almost certainly be spending the next few years in hysterical opposition, attacking the Government for fixing the mess they created, completely oblivious to the reality that we cannot help the most vulnerable in society by basing the economy on debt. Without wealth creation, we cannot achieve the social justice that we all want.

Before I finish, I would like briefly to express my thanks to my constituents, who have sent me here to represent them. It is the greatest honour and privilege of my life to serve the people of Cheshire. It has been quite a long and personal journey here, as well. I was born on a council estate in Cheshire, as the youngest of four children. My father was a wages clerk, but he died when I was young, and my mother worked in a series of local shops and pubs to make ends meet. I left my local comprehensive school with few qualifications and got a job stacking shelves at the local supermarket, but I was fortunate to have the chance to study business at night school, and went on to have a successful manufacturing career working in sales. I should like to think that I was one of those slick salesmen whom the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) liked to attack on such a regular basis in the last Parliament.

I have always enjoyed serving my local community, spending four years as a special constable in the Cheshire police and 10 years as a local councillor. I have no idea how long I will serve in the House—that will be up to the people of Weaver Vale—but I hope that if I am to leave this place sooner rather than later, I will be able to help, in a small way, to put the “great” back into Great Britain. In that vein, I commend the Bill to the House.