Thousands of people, including many in Pendle, who entrusted the world’s oldest mutually owned insurance company, Equitable Life, with their savings and whose pensions have, in many cases, been savagely reduced as a result of maladministration, should receive an apology from the Government says Pendle MP, Gordon Prentice. They should also get appropriate compensation.

The MP serves on the Public Administration Select Committee whose report on the Equitable Life saga is published today. The report unequivocally supports the Parliamentary Ombudsman who wants to see a compensation scheme established to pay for the loss that has been suffered by Equitable Life’s members.

Speaking from Westminster, the MP said: "Like every other MP, I have constituents who were the innocent victims of a decade of regulatory failure. They thought they were putting their money into a safe and secure mutual and they relied on the regulators to alert them if anything was untoward."

"The report makes it clear that the central story of the Ombudsman’s investigations is the failure of the regulators to exercise the powers they had to ensure that a company with a sound reputation was in fact observing minimum standards."

The MP added: "This saga stretches way back into the 1990s, even before the current Government was first elected, and policyholders have had to wait far too long for justice. The Ombudsman’s report paints a damning picture of the prudential regulation of Equitable Life for over a decade."

The Government is expected to respond early in the New Year to the Ombudsman’s report which was published in July 2008.

The Public Administration Committee’s report can be read on the net at www.parliament.uk/pasc