PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER'S REPORT ON EQUITABLE

Jeff Prestridge, Personal Finance Editor,
The Mail on Sunday 5th October, 2008

“Representatives of the splendid Equitable Members’ Action Group (EMAG) have been busy over conference season drumming up support among MPs for their cause.

In the wake of the damning report in the summer from Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham, which concluded that Equitable Life policyholders – past and present – should be compensated by the Government, EMAG is determined to keep pressure on Brown and his acolytes, hence its quiet courting of MPs at the LibDem and Conservative conferences and its more eye-catching demonstration in Manchester. There, EMAG members carried a real coffin and wore T-shirts proclaiming ‘30,000 dead, waiting for justice’ in recognition of the fact that every day the Government prevaricates, 15 Equitable Life pensioners die.

The Government promised to respond to Abraham’s report – which called on it to apologise to policyholders and compensate them for losses resulting from regulatory failure over ten years – but not until Parliament returns from the summer recess tomorrow.

Financial Mail trusts that Brown and his lieutenants, namely Economic Secretary to The Treasury Kitty Ussher, do not now use the credit crunch as an excuse not to pay compensation.

Equitable Life policyholders bought policies not knowing what the regulators knew – that Equitable Life was on the verge of financial meltdown – or they maintained investments with the insurer rather than move their money elsewhere.

Irrespective of the pressure on the Government’s purse strings, compensation is the fair outcome.”