Updated 23 January 2026
EMAG exists to campaign for full government compensation. Will members of EMAG please note that because of pressure of work we regret it is not possible to answer individual written enquiries.
How would you feel if your pension was lost because of others' failures?
EMAG calls on Chancellor to settle the government's unpaid debt to Equitable Life victims
The Government's announcement of £11.8bn compensation for victims of the contaminated blood scandal is very welcome, if long overdue. It is also right that the Government has allocated £1.8bn in funds to rectify the injustice to the sub-postmasters in the Horizon IT scandal.
EMAG is calling on the government to pay the victims of the Equitable Life scandal the £2.6bn unpaid balance of compensation they are still owed following the maladministration identified by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.
EMAG believes that where the state accepts responsibility for a failure it should provide proper financial redress.
EMAG representatives at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool
Media coverage of EMAG's campaign
The Sunday Times ran a prominent piece on EMAG's campaign to highlight the 25-year anniversary of Equitable Life's closure to new business. The online version (which is behind a paywall) is available here.
In a separate piece Ruth Sutherland at the Daily Mail also highlighted the 25-year anniversary and lack of full compensation following news that Utmost Life and Pensions is being sold to JAB Insurance. The article can be viewed here.
Treasury set to pocket £171m of our compensation
EMAG has established that, as of May 2025, £171m of the compensation made available for policyholders is set to be kept in the Treasury's pockets. In 2010 the government announced that 37,000 post-92 WPAs would get “100%“ compensation via an annual payment for life, with £625m allocated and indexed at the time for this purpose. £100m was held back by the Treasury as a contingency. The rest - £775m - was allocated for distribution amongst 895,000 non-WPA policyholders via a one-off payment.
From FOIs and other information EMAG can show that the spending on annual payments to WPAs was £47m less than forecast up to 30 May 2025. This significant underspend means the £100m held will never be needed as a contingency. In addition, the government failed to trace around 100,000 other policyholders, leading to a £24m underspend of compensation for non-WPAs.
In total this means £171m - over 10% - of the limited money made available for compensation - is set to be kept by the Treasury and not reach the people to whom it is owed. Were this to happen it would be a further slap in the face for those who worked so hard to save for their retirement and who relied on the regulators to do their jobs.
It would add insult to injury considering that the Parliamentary Ombudsman ruled that regulators comprehensively failed to implement the system that Parliament had legislated for, leading to a financial loss of £4.1bn for around one million people.
Paul Weir at the ‘Enough is Enough March for Justice’
EMAG Chair Paul Weir speaking outside the Treasury
Private Members Bill
Having discovered the £171 million underspend, Bob Blackman CBE MP, secured a slot to introduce a Bill to the House of Commons. The Bill would require the Treasury to ensure that the full value of compensation announced in 2010 reaches policyholders. In doing so it would prioritise the most elderly and vulnerable pensioners. Bob's powerful speech making the case for the Bill can be viewed here.
EMAG AGM
EMAG's Annual General Meeting took place on Monday 24 November via Zoom. All resolutions before the meeting were carried.
