Updated 4 January 2024
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?
Treasury set to pocket c. £180m of compensation owed to policyholders
As a result of a series of Freedom of Information Requests, EMAG has established that at least £177m of the £1.5bn is set to be kept in the Treasury's pockets.
The underspend is accounted for as follows:
- of the annual top-up payments to With-Profits Annuitants (WPAs) - forecast to cost £618m at 2011 values - £46m less than budgeted for was spent up to 2022.
- the Government kept back a £100m contingency claiming that it was needed in case WPAs lived longer than expected, but with WPA annual payments running 8% less than forecast each year, it is extremely unlikely it will be needed.
- the rest - £782m – was left to share amongst other policyholders, but £31m is unspent, largely because of the Government's failure to trace thousands of policyholders.
Draft legislation
Having discovered that the Treasury is set to keep around £180 million of the already severely reduced £1.5bn of compensation announced in 2010, EMAG has 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.
EMAG believes that the Treasury trying to keep over 10% of the already inadequate compensation pot 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 loss of £4.1bn for one million people.
APPG Extraordinary General Meeting
To ensure it complies with new parliamentary rules, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Justice for Equitable Life Policyholders met on 5 December to elect the required number of officers. APPGs are now required to have exactly four officers, meaning the group had seven too many. The following four officers were elected:
- Bob Blackman MP – Co-Chairman
- Fabian Hamilton MP – Co-Chairman
- Peter Dowd MP – Vice-Chairman
- Stephen Metcalfe MP – Vice Chairman
Sir Peter Bottomley MP was appointed to the honorary role of President.
EMAG Annual General Meeting
EMAG's Annual General Meeting took place online on 17 November. All resolutions were passed and EMAG's existing directors were re-elected for a further year.