Equitable Life Policyholders: Compensation — House of Commons, 2017-03-23
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman has obviously thought this through carefully. The conclusions he has come to with his first concern, and the conclusions he is moving towards with his second concern, are very wise. As another hon. Member pointed out, the purpose of having a regulator is to spot when what is promised is not realistic. In a democracy such as ours, with checks and balances and regulators, ordinary investors are entitled to assume that the regulator would say, "This is nonsense and dangerous", even when a well respected and reputable company had made those promises—these were not fly-by-night investments as far as my constituents were concerned, but investments in a very old and well respected company Mr B is quite elderly—he is in his 80s now—and his memory is fading a bit. He was a shopkeeper, which is just the kind of small businessman and entrepreneur that the Conservative Government purport to support. The Scottish National party, too, very much encourages entrepreneurialism and small business—it is in the interests of all of us to encourage entrepreneurialism Mr B took out his Equitable Life policy about 40 years ago and has suffered hugely. He told me that, whenever he thinks about what has happened to him and the losses he has sustained, he finds it very hard to describe the pain it makes him feel. He ran a shop in an area of Edinburgh where a lot of his customers were professional people who had also invested in the scheme and told him it was a good thing. He proceeded with all due caution Mr B has told people in my office that he is not looking for very much. He wants his rights and his reasonable expectations to be respected. He wanted me to make it very clear today that the current under-compensation underlines his belief that the ideas of trust and bond, which he says used to be so important to investment, seem to have no place in the modern world of financial transactions. It is unfortunate that an elderly gentleman such as Mr B, who has worked so hard all his life in his own business, should have reached that conclusion. He is anxious that, at this stage, late on in his life, if he is unable to pay the debts that the Equitable scheme should have covered for him, he will lose his house—the home where he lives The losses of Mr C, another constituent, are substantial —he told me that he believes his losses to be upwards of £200,000. Mr C was a shopkeeper too. He believes that, as he is getting very old, any year could be his last, and that time is quickly running out to find the justice he deserves I am making a heartfelt plea to the Minister on behalf of constituents such as Mr A, Mr B and Mr C to look at this again. I wrote to the Chancellor in advance of the last Budget. The Minister was generous in his reply and dealt with matters in detail. I realise that, to a certain extent, his hands are tied, but I make a plea to him to go to the Chancellor to revisit this issue, so that the compensation payments—I use the word "compensation" loosely, as we have discussed—can be considerably increased for all our constituents, but particularly for gentlemen and women in the position of Mr A, Mr B and Mr C. To echo what others have said, it is the right thing to do and the moral thing to do, but it is also in all our interests, because it would increase and underline confidence in the financial sector, which is so important to the United Kingdom.