Bob Blackman
Main Page: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)Department Debates - View all Bob Blackman's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House congratulates the Government on providing a scheme to compensate victims of the Equitable Life scandal; welcomes the Government’s acceptance of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s findings in full; notes that the Parliamentary Ombudsman recommended that policyholders should be put back in the position they would have been in had maladministration not occurred; further notes that most victims have only received partial compensation compared to the confirmed losses; and calls on the Government to make a commitment to provide full compensation during the lifetime of the next Parliament as the economy and public finances continue to recover.
In the run-up to the 2010 general election, the Conservative party discouraged candidates from signing any pledges, with one or two notable exceptions, the most notable being that of seeking justice for Equitable Life policyholders. Having done some research, I was very proud and pleased to sign that pledge. After I was successfully elected, I was immediately elevated to become co-chairman of the all-party group on Equitable Life policyholders. I am pleased to be able to report that we now have more than 200 members. That demonstrates what an important issue this is for people in this House and beyond.
It is important that we look at what is different about Equitable Life policyholders compared with those in other such schemes. With the advent of private pensions and the encouragement of individuals to save for their future retirement, Equitable Life developed an almost Ponzi-like scheme whereby its representatives went out and sold policies for which they promised bonuses and pensions that were beyond belief, and people were convinced to sign up for them. When that was reported to the regulator and the Treasury, they took no action whatsoever. This was all very well while money was coming into the pot, but eventually the amount coming in would be less than that going out, and therefore the scheme would collapse. The scheme therefore became too big to fail, because had it failed, the Government of the day, of whichever party, would have had to pick up the full cost of compensation to the policyholders.
The whole scandal was covered up during the scheme’s entire period of 20 years. A position was reached of a cosy relationship between the company, the regulator and the Government whereby they would not unveil the situation. The Equitable Members Action Group had to drag the Government through the courts. Eventually, in 2004, we had the publication of the Penrose report, which made recommendations about the position of Equitable Life. That was not good enough, because it did not do anything to compensate the people who had suffered. Then the parliamentary ombudsman made clear recommendations that the policyholders needed to be moved from the position where they had suffered a relative loss back to the position they would have been in had maladministration not occurred. That was very important. Equally, the ombudsman accepted that it would be appropriate to consider the potential impact on the public purse of any payment of compensation.
I am delighted that almost the first legislative step by the coalition Government was to put in place a scheme to compensate the individuals who had suffered a relative loss. We had argued in this Chamber for justice for those policyholders. There are various types of policyholders who have received different types of compensation. The first—
Bob Blackman
May I specify the types first, and then I will take interventions?
The first set of policyholders were those who took out their policies and had an annuity in place pre-1 September 1992. They were specifically excluded from the compensation scheme. I will come on to what happened to them subsequently. Secondly, there were the with-profits annuitants, who were given compensation of 100% of their relative loss—quite right too. Then there were the normal policyholders, who received an element of compensation. Unfortunately, when the legislation was set up, the public finances were in a scandalous state, and there was little money to allocate. I am delighted that the Treasury nevertheless chose to allocate sufficient funding to provide some £1.5 billion in compensation. There was £620 million to compensate the 37,000 with-profits annuitants, but, with the contingency fund of £100 million that was put in place, plus the costs of administering the scheme, that left only some £775 million to be spread between the 945,000 other policyholders, who therefore got only 22.4% of the compensation that they were due. As a result, those individuals have not been put back into the position that they should have been in had they not suffered the relative loss.
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is making an extremely good and most important speech. I agree that the coalition Government deserve considerable credit for having tackled this early on in their term in office. Since, sadly, I cannot be here for the Minister’s speech, will my hon. Friend pursue the issue of the speed at which these payments are being made? Many of my constituents have had to wait a considerable length of time. I would be most grateful for his and the Minister’s reassurance that everything is being done to make these payments as rapidly as possible.
Bob Blackman
It is fair to say that the all-party group and EMAG have been on the backs of the Treasury Ministers responsible. The current Minister is in her place. Her predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), was very helpful in making sure that the scheme was speeded up and that people got the compensation due to them. Most importantly, he decided that he would not close the scheme, which could have been done under the legislation, until we had traced every one of the policyholders due for compensation.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
May I commend my hon. Friend on all his work on this issue over several years? Is not the crucial point in the motion that, with the public finances improving, the compensation already paid should not be considered the last word on the matter, and there should be more room to give proper compensation to people who need it? As I am sitting next to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), may I ask whether my hon. Friend understands the frustration of many people that the Government seem to have plenty of money to spray on things such as overseas aid and aid to India, which might be better spent on such compensation to people in this country?
Bob Blackman
The clear issue is that when the assessment was made of the amount of compensation due to policyholders—this point is crucial—it was decided that £4.3 billion should be paid in compensation. Clearly, £1.5 billion has been allocated, although it has not all been spent, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) mentioned, meaning that a compensation bill of £2.8 billion is still outstanding.
The Prime Minister quite rightly said at the Conservative party conference that as the economy recovers and we fix this country’s problems, tax rates will come down, but I would say that there is a still a bill to be paid to the people who saved for their retirement. Therefore, as the economy recovers and the public purse allows, we should compensate policyholders who have suffered a relative loss, as we committed to do at the last general election.
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
May I congratulate my hon. Friend and the co-sponsors of the motion on bringing this matter before the House? I am a past and, I think, a continuing policyholder of Equitable Life; given yesterday’s debate, I suppose that is a matter of deep interest to the world. I am concerned that the amount of compensation to be paid to individual policyholders is relatively small. Does my hon. Gentleman agree that there is now a duty on the Government to get rid of these fairly small claims as quickly as possible? Many of my affected constituents are in their 70s and 80s, and they need satisfaction as soon as possible.
Bob Blackman
I completely concur with my hon. and learned Friend.
I should say that the Chancellor made a key and very brave move to compensate the pre-1992 trapped annuitants with a one-off payment of £5,000, which was doubled to £10,000 for those on pension credit. That was very welcome, but we are talking about the most vulnerable people trapped by the scheme, and my view is that they should receive total compensation. The estimate for total compensation for that element alone is £115 million, which I consider a drop in the ocean compared with the total pension bill due.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
May I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing the motion before the House? As we are rapidly approaching that time in the political cycle called the Budget, I suggest that this is a golden opportunity for our Treasury team and the coalition Government to show that they have a big heart and meet the demands we are all making on behalf of our oldest and most vulnerable constituents?
Bob Blackman
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary is listening, but she will clearly not announce the Budget measures today. After this debate, however, I will seek a clear commitment from the political parties about what they will do if elected to government on 7 May. Although it would be welcome if the Chancellor stood up at the Dispatch Box and agreed a full compensation package, the key issue is that if he cannot do so in this Budget, Members and people outside the House will want to know what the political parties would do to compensate those who have suffered.
Ian Paisley
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on getting this matter on to the Floor of the House. He is in danger of being canonised by the many thousands of people in Northern Ireland who are watching this debate closely because of how unfairly they have been affected. I hope that those on the Treasury Bench are listening to the points that Members have raised.
There have been announcements this week about the bonuses to be paid to bankers in banks controlled by the public purse, and some bankers have taken the personal decision to refuse bonuses if they so wish. At least they have the choice. The people who have suffered under Equitable Life have not got a choice. I hope that Treasury Ministers are listening, and recognise that if they want the future support of Opposition Members, they should address this issue before the end of this term.
Bob Blackman
I will call the hon. Gentleman my honourable Friend because he has been stalwart in defending the rights of the people of Northern Ireland who have suffered in this scheme.
The key point is that, according to the published figures, the Treasury had a surplus of £8.8 billion in January, which was remarkable given that we were expecting £6.5 billion. Some proportion of the additional £2 billion surplus could be put towards compensation for policyholders who have suffered.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
My hon. Friend rightly mentions the surplus in January. We are coming to the end of the financial year, and many Departments may have an underspend in their allocated budgets. Would it not be a good idea to divert some of that underspend to the victims of Equitable Life?
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestion. The Chancellor will be listening to such rumours, and will no doubt want to hoover up that money to dispense for appropriate good causes, of which this is clearly one.
Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people have been pushed into an extremely difficult position, and that some of them are extremely close to poverty as a result of the amount they have lost? In many cases, they are not at an age at which there is anything they can do to replace the funds they have lost. They face a very uncertain future, as they have for many years, but there is absolutely nothing they can do to make a difference.
Bob Blackman
I do not normally agree with the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), but he has said:
“They were not like the people who put their savings into outfits offering dubious and extraordinary returns, such as those who decided to chance their savings with the Icelandic banks. The Equitable policyholders are in their current position through absolutely no fault of their own.”—[Official Report, 14 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 781.]
He went on to say that those at fault were Equitable Life, the Government and the regulator.
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Like other hon. Members, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and on keeping this very important issue live. He must be aware that there will never be a right time in the Government finances to put this matter right. The Treasury may have made a small budgetary surplus over and above what it expected in January, but the fact is that the Treasury debt is still huge. It is as simple as that.
The only way round this problem is to say that there will never be a financially right time, only a morally right time. That time is now, given the long lag, which has been characterised by denials and evasions. They also occurred in the contaminated blood scandal, which was perhaps even worse. The only way to deal with this is to pay the £115 million that the hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned, and to have a clear statement about future year-by-year reductions in the outstanding £2.8 billion, which the Equitable Life policyholders have wholly earned and wholly deserve. They should be awarded the whole amount, because that is the only way in which this dreadful ill can be rectified.
Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is a great shame that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) was almost the sole individual on the Labour Benches during the Labour Government who promoted a compensation scheme. I commend him for his efforts to get his Government to introduce one. I wish that other Labour Members had promoted such schemes.
Bob Blackman
I will make a couple of points and then give way for the final time.
We are clear about what we want the Government to do. Irrespective of which political party wins the general election, we want full compensation for the pre-1992 trapped annuitants. As I have said, it would cost £115 million to compensate those individuals. Those are the most vulnerable individuals because they retired a long time ago and many of them are very frail. It would cost a relatively small amount of public money to give them proper compensation. I am afraid that the longer we delay, the fewer of them will be around, because they are dying off almost daily.
Secondly, as the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) said, we should commit to a graduated full compensation package so that the policy holders are compensated as the public finances continue to recover. Individuals who took out pension policies some time ago are not necessarily reaching retirement age. Topping up their pensions over four or five years would therefore enable them to retire in the way that they expected.
Paul Flynn
May I state that I have a close financial interest in this matter? I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was discussed at great length by the Public Administration Committee in the last Parliament. Does he have a formula, which is what we were looking for, that suggests who is responsible for losses made? Can we have a scheme that is consistent for all pension schemes that get in trouble, such as the Allied Steel and Wire scheme, which has still not been resolved? If he has such a formula, perhaps it could be agreed to between the parties now, so that what is national responsibility, personal responsibility and company responsibility is accepted and we have a resilient formula that can be used for Equitable Life, Allied Steel and Wire and all those that go broke in the future.
Bob Blackman
I note the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. The key point is that the Equitable Life policy holders have been through the courts and through the parliamentary ombudsman, and the matter has been found in their favour. Maladministration clearly took place and a key decision was taken to put those policy holders back into the position that they would have been in had that maladministration not taken place. Clearly, other pension schemes are in trouble. There are a lot of pension schemes in trouble because the previous Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, raided private pension funds and thought that that was a golden opportunity. We must take that into account. That is not the case with Equitable Life policy holders, which makes this a different matter. We have to be careful about broadening out this subject to other pension schemes.
Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that expectations have been raised and promises have been made? All that these people did was to invest in what they thought was a trusted company. They have done nothing wrong and they cannot for the life of them understand why it is taking so long to settle the matter.
Bob Blackman
These people have battled and struggled through the courts and through a long process to get justice. There are many of us, certainly on the Government Benches but also on the Opposition Benches, who say that all these people did was invest for the future and trust what they were told. They took a risk to a certain extent that the market would be appropriate, but they did not expect the level of maladministration that took place or the way in which they would be treated.
Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)
My hon. Friend has made an eloquent case. He referred to the great disappointment that is felt by so many people who believe that they deserve compensation for what happened. He has not mentioned this, but does he agree that there is also considerable anger among people who feel let down? Is it not somewhat ironic and very uncomfortable that the Government who have started to do something about it are taking so much of the blame?
Bob Blackman
I have commended the Government for the action that they have taken to set up the scheme. At the time of the legislation, we tabled a cross-party amendment to ensure that the trapped pre-1992 annuitants would be compensated, but the Government resisted it. I am delighted that the Government saw sense after the lobbying that took place and provided a degree of compensation. The Government should be commended for ensuring that there is a compensation scheme. However, we have an independent assessment of the total amount of compensation that is due—it was not done by EMAG or by the Government, but is independent—and £2.8 billion is still due.
Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (Ind)
The hon. Gentleman is being extraordinarily generous in giving way. There is a unanimous feeling in the House that justice needs to be done for these people. We know how much is outstanding and there is a big difference between what people are due under the existing compensation scheme and what they are actually due. Surely what we need is not a five-year plan to pay the money back, but a one-off payment that is made as soon as possible. Many of these people will die before they get their just reward.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) has taken a lot of interventions and I have allowed him a lot more time than is normally the case in this sort of debate. I also appreciate that there will be further interventions and I am not suggesting that he concludes his speech immediately. However, I make a plea for very short interventions, because people who say that they are not going to make a speech, but that they would like to intervene, take up the time of people who sit here all afternoon with patience and politeness, waiting to make a speech. I will not be tolerant of long interventions, but I am tolerant of the hon. Gentleman, who is being very generous in taking so many interventions.
Bob Blackman
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was going to draw my remarks to a close after that last intervention.
The issue before us is one of justice and fairness. Everyone believes in ensuring that the policyholders receive proper compensation for the injustice that they have suffered. These are people who did the right thing: they invested for their future. They expected a reasonable return on their investment and to be protected by the regulator and the Treasury. The fact is that they were badly let down.
This is the opportunity for all three major political parties and the smaller parties to give a commitment on what they would do if they were elected as the Government on 7 May for the 945,000 people out there who are still waiting for 77.6% of the compensation that they are due and for the trapped pre-1992 annuitants who deserve full compensation, which at £115 million would be a drop in the ocean, and who are the frailest in our society. If parties give them that commitment, they will give them their votes; if parties deny them that commitment, they may withdraw their votes.
Bob Blackman
I congratulate the 12 Back-Bench Members from across the House who made speeches in the debate and the huge number who intervened. The will of the House is quite clear: this is a debt of honour, and it is no fault of the individual savers whose life savings have been either lost or severely depleted. We have heard many examples from Members. I could produce a mailbag full of examples of individuals from across the country who invested for their retirement but are now unable to supplement their income, through no fault of their own. They did the right thing by saving for their retirement, but through regulatory failure, a failure by Equitable Life and a conspiracy with the then Government, their savings were taken away from them.
This is a debt of honour, so I must stress the point that we should honour it over the course of the next Parliament. I completely accept my hon. Friend the Minister’s point that the economy was in tatters in 2010 and that a series of difficult decisions had to be made. I congratulate the Government on coming forward with a large sum of public money to compensate those individuals who are due. However, a debt of £2.8 billion is still owed to those people who saved for their retirement. That should be funded over the course of the next Parliament.
However, given the remarks from the Minister and the shadow Minister, I fear that there are currently no plans to provide that compensation. That means the battle will go on. The fight will continue until such time as the Equitable Life policyholders receive the compensation they are due. Therefore, if it comes to it, we will press the motion to a vote.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House congratulates the Government on providing a scheme to compensate victims of the Equitable Life scandal; welcomes the Government’s acceptance of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s findings in full; notes that the Parliamentary Ombudsman recommended that policyholders should be put back in the position they would have been in had maladministration not occurred; further notes that most victims have only received partial compensation compared to the confirmed losses; and calls on the Government to make a commitment to provide full compensation during the lifetime of the next Parliament as the economy and public finances continue to recover.