23 November 2002 - Annuitants letter to MP - Number 2

Jeremy Corbyn MP
House of Commons
Westminster
London WC1

Dear Mr. Corbyn

THE EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY

I am one of your constituents and am writing to you in despair. I am an annuitant of The Equitable Life Assurance Society. I know that you are aware that the Society is in grave trouble, as you were kind enough to sign an Early Day Motion about Equitable earlier this year and we had some correspondence regarding this. I now learn that my annuity, on which I just about survive, will be slashed, as of next year, by up to 30 per cent.

I appreciate that thousands of other Equitable victims, not just annuitants, have suffered over the last two years seeing their 'pension pots' reduced by huge amounts. I am not an expert on financial matters but I do understand that there were problems apparent with Equitable a considerable time ago yet the so called financial 'regulators' sat on their hands and did nothing. When the chickens finally started coming home to roost, we were subjected to what was laughingly called 'The Compromise Agreement' which was loudly and expensively (to the tune, I believe, of £30 million of OUR money spent on hordes of lawyers and PR spinners) trumpeted to put everything right.

The rest, of course, is history. Far from putting things right, matters have gone from bad to catastrophic. There are now hundreds of thousands of absolutely furious Equitable victims and one of the things they are most furious about is the abysmal failure of the financial regulators, who were supposed to watch out for their interests.

I, and they, are also angry that the present Government appears to care not a jot about us. Whilst MPs recently voted themselves a large increase in pension benefits and Andrew Smith, your new Secretary of State for Works and Pensions, in a recent Panorama programme about the whole pensions mess, appeared to consider the matter a bit of a joke, going by the way he smirked throughout the interview, people's lives are being ruined, and not just the lives of the frail and elderly - many of whom will, thanks to Equitable's latest bombshell, have to sell their homes in order to finance their remaining years - but also all those policyholders who entrusted their savings with Equitable, believing not only in the Society, governance of which turned out to be, at the most charitable interpretation, bloody useless, but also that their interests were being watched over by the financial regulators.

Many have complained to the Ombudsman - who states that the Penrose report is awaited before the complaints can be looked into. And meanwhile, we learn that Penrose may not ever see the light of day and could be suppressed on the grounds of 'sensitive' matters - I assume this means, embarrassing to the Treasury/FSO!

The Government is apparently anxious to encourage people to provide for their old age. Frankly, these days, why the hell should they, when their savings can be so cavalierly filched and wasted, whilst the regulators look on and the Government obviously doesn't care.

I help one of the action groups EMAG (Equitable Members' Action Group, www.emag.org.uk ) and know for a fact that many other Equitable victims are in your constituency.

PLEASE push for some action on the Equitable disaster. If you require further information, let me know.

Yours sincerely