Sarah Olney

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. Many thanks to the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) for such comprehensive opening remarks. Certainly for those of us who have been in Parliament for slightly less time, that was a very useful reminder of how we got to where we are today. The Equitable Life scandal involved the near collapse of the UK’s oldest mutual insurer after it failed to honour guaranteed pension payouts. The debacle exposed regulatory failures and caused significant financial losses for nearly a million policyholders across the country, including many of my constituents in Richmond Park. Approximately 2,000 people in every single constituency across the country have lost pension savings because of mistakes by successive Governments and the regulators. The collapse of Equitable Life was one of the biggest scandals in UK financial services history. Over 1 million people lost a significant part of their retirement savings. Their retirement plans were blown apart, as we heard from many contributors today. Typical Equitable Life victims included retired nurses, teachers, civil servants, factory and shop workers and small business owners—people who had worked hard and saved diligently for decades. In 2008, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman concluded that victims’ losses were directly attributable to a decade of serial maladministration by Departments and their agencies. The state has accepted responsibility and accepts how much people lost, but the ombudsman’s recommendations have not been fully implemented. In recommending redress, the ombudsman called on the Government to establish and fund a compensation scheme “to put those people who have suffered a relative loss back into the position that they would have been in had maladministration not occurred.” In 2010, the Government accepted in full the ombudsman’s findings. The Government accepted that victims’ losses amounted to more than £4 billion. Although 37,000 with-profits annuitants are being fully compensated, 895,000 people have received only 22.5% of their acknowledged losses. When the Liberal Democrats were in government, we made good on our manifesto commitment to set up a proper compensation fund in line with the ombudsman’s recommendations. The initial compensation scheme was set up during the time of the financial crisis and sought to balance victims’ needs with the capacity of public finances. Many victims still have concerns about the allocation of that compensation and the methodology used to distribute it. Although I am personally not disappointed to welcome my hon. Friends the Members for St Ives (Andrew George) and for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) back from their “sabbaticals”, I share their frustration that after all this time, this issue is still being discussed. Constituents of mine in Richmond Park, like many other constituents, have been affected by this situation. I have heard from one couple who, after having diligently worked and served as respected professionals for decades, have had their retirement burdened by this appalling miscarriage of justice. Along with many other long-suffering members and former members of Equitable Life, they saw their life pension savings decimated by Government malfeasance. According to the Equitable Members Action Group, as of 2025 more than £170 million of compensation already allocated and forecast to be paid to victims was set to be kept by the Treasury and not reach the people affected. The Government should release that money in full and immediately to affected policyholders, as it was always intended to be. In addition, the Government should listen to the concerns of those affected by the collapse of Equitable Life and establish an independent commissioner to assess individuals’ claims. That would ensure that the victims of the Equitable Life scandal, such as my constituents, were finally treated fairly and properly compensated.