Equitable Life

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con) [V]]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this vital debate. Ever since my election to this place just over a year ago, I have been contacted by dozens of constituents from across Keighley and Ilkley asking for my support on this issue, and they have it. The Equitable Life scandal has gone on for far too long.

Fundamentally, this comes down to one simple principle: fairness. When we save for retirement, we expect the money that we invested to be there for us, but the customers of Equitable Life, even after compensation, have been left with just a fraction of what they were owed. The final report on the Equitable Life payment scheme in 2016 set out that compensation payments to policyholders equated to only 22.4% of their relative loss. Some victims have spent years campaigning for compensation. Very sadly, some people died before they could receive the compensation they were due.

In 2010, when the parliamentary ombudsman found in favour of savers, stating that there had been a decade of maladministration, many savers breathed a sigh of relief, expecting to be compensated for their losses. While I recognise that in 2010, the coalition Government took significant steps, despite tough economic circumstances, by delivering £1.5 billion in a compensation scheme, there were inherent unfairnesses in the way the scheme was administered. Some policyholders rightly received their full compensation, but others were unfairly excluded. These are people who have worked hard and form the backbone of our country.

I accept that this is not an easy position for the Government. Of course we have to strike a fair balance between the interests of policyholders and taxpayers. Our public finances, especially in the coming years, will be put under enormous strain as we recover from the terrible pandemic. But what better place to start building back better from the pandemic than delivering a fair and just outcome for these savers?

I know that the Government have already taken action to do all they can to prevent a scandal like this from happening again. I know that the Pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), has worked hard as part of the Pension Schemes Bill to protect customers from reckless actions of pension bosses. But I urge the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to look at this again and see what more action can be taken to compensate those victims. Has he considered, for example, reopening the challenge mechanism, which allowed policyholders to identify errors? No one should be penalised for doing the right thing. We owe it to the Equitable Life generation to stand by them.