Updated 2 May 2025
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
Treasury set to pocket c. £180m of compensation owed to policyholders
EMAG has established that around £180m of the £1.5bn allocated for compensation 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 £54m less than forecast as of 2022/23. This significant underspend means there is no indication that the £100m contingency will ever be needed.
In addition, the government failed to trace around 100,000 other policyholders, leading to a £24m underspend of compensation for non-WPAs.
In total we estimate at least £178m – 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 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 to be proposed
Having discovered the c. £180 million underspend, EMAG drafted a Bill which 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.
We are pleased to say that the long-standing advocate for our campaign, Bob Blackman CBE MP, has secured a slot to seek leave to introduce the Bill to the House of Commons on Wednesday 14 May.
