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Thursday 22nd October 2026
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13:30
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Select Committee statement. Dame Chi Onwurah will speak on the publication of the. Special report of the Science and Technology Committee, Rewiring the state. Delivering digital government. Government response HC651 for up to ten minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of this statement, I will call members to put questions on the subject of the statement and call Dame Chi Onwurah to respond to these. In turn, questions should be brief and members may only ask one very brief question. I call Dame Chi , chair of the science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee. Thank you so much, Miss Furness, and I'm really grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this statement on the Science and Technology Select Committee's report.
Rewiring the state, delivering digital government, and to discuss the government's response. I want to put on record my thanks to the committee clerks and specialists who have supported this complex inquiry, as well as to all those who gave evidence in person or written. Both the previous government and this one have spoken of their ambition to make the UK a truly digital state, transforming citizens experience of the health service, the education and justice systems and indeed all public services, increasing productivity and efficiency and reducing costs. I am a tech evangelist. I believe technology should make the world work better for people, and my committee welcomes and supports the government's ambitions.
But our report raised serious concerns about how achievable they are. In our report, we identified four building blocks for successful digital transformation money. Money always matters, but we found inadequate data on digital spend prevents the government from making informed decisions or holding those responsible to account. Then people do. We have the right people and skills to deliver digital transformation and cultural change, to ensure skills are valued and embedded in leadership roles? How many permanent secretaries have the digital experience required? For example? Then third, information and data security. There are serious data hygiene failures across the public sector.
Public bodies hold public data in trust. It needs to meet the highest standards. And then fourthly, delivery. We need a detailed and measurable plan to ensure the success of the digital transformation agenda. Then we also identified four barriers. So to realising the benefits of digital transformation. Firstly, hype. Both tech companies and government are guilty of this. Tech companies hype their solutions, often without reference to the actual problems, and government talk up the impact, such as the proposed £45 billion annual productivity savings from digitalisation hype undermines the credibility of the government's arguments, confuses and demoralizes civil servants, and encourages the belief that overoptimism, rather than achievement and honesty, will be rewarded.
Secondly, legacy systems outdated, obsolete and unsupported IT infrastructure systems, hardware or processes pose an unacceptable level of risk. Our report found that without a plan to address legacy systems, the government's digital ambitions will struggle to be achieved. Then thirdly, vendor lock in if significant costs or reductions in functionality are associated with changing vendor, then we have vendor lock in where vendors can hold government hostage raise prices, require additional contracts or reduce performance. The public sector is dependent on a small number of large digital and technology providers such as Palantir, Microsoft, AWS, and the government appears to be worryingly comfortable with this.
And then fourth barrier was the lack of technology sovereignty. Whilst this overreliance on a small number of foreign vendors exists, the government can't set out to deliver its own sovereign digital agenda for the United Kingdom or fully support a competitive UK tech ecosystem. The government should set out a public sector definition of sovereignty. Palantir is a case study in three of the four barriers. Its Palantir Palantir relationship with the NHS began during the Covid 19 pandemic, when it was paid a nominal £1 fee to provide what its chief executive, Louis Mosley, described to us as aggregating data.
It is now hyped as being uniquely essential to the NHS mission to save lives. It is a clear example of growing vendor lock in, as well as our overreliance on foreign tech giants. Our report called on the government to commit to exercising the February 2027 break clause in the Federated Data Platform contract. Now, I want to thank the government for their response, which has come from DCMs, though I understand other departments were involved. So to welcome example of cross-government working, some parts of it are excellent. So particularly the commitment to develop a strategy within government digital service to end vendor lock in, that's a real step forward, as is the commitment to strong central coordination to drive progress on fixing legacy systems across the public sector, which is what we recommended.
An action plan is promised, as well as a remediation plan subject to security consideration. The government also reveals that 36 tech company employees have had access to either the federated data plan or specific data sets assigned
Rewiring the state, delivering digital government, and to discuss the government's response. I want to put on record my thanks to the committee clerks and specialists who have supported this complex inquiry, as well as to all those who gave evidence in person or written. Both the previous government and this one have spoken of their ambition to make the UK a truly digital state, transforming citizens experience of the health service, the education and justice systems and indeed all public services, increasing productivity and efficiency and reducing costs. I am a tech evangelist. I believe technology should make the world work better for people, and my committee welcomes and supports the government's ambitions.
But our report raised serious concerns about how achievable they are. In our report, we identified four building blocks for successful digital transformation money. Money always matters, but we found inadequate data on digital spend prevents the government from making informed decisions or holding those responsible to account. Then people do. We have the right people and skills to deliver digital transformation and cultural change, to ensure skills are valued and embedded in leadership roles? How many permanent secretaries have the digital experience required? For example? Then third, information and data security. There are serious data hygiene failures across the public sector.
Public bodies hold public data in trust. It needs to meet the highest standards. And then fourthly, delivery. We need a detailed and measurable plan to ensure the success of the digital transformation agenda. Then we also identified four barriers. So to realising the benefits of digital transformation. Firstly, hype. Both tech companies and government are guilty of this. Tech companies hype their solutions, often without reference to the actual problems, and government talk up the impact, such as the proposed £45 billion annual productivity savings from digitalisation hype undermines the credibility of the government's arguments, confuses and demoralizes civil servants, and encourages the belief that overoptimism, rather than achievement and honesty, will be rewarded.
Secondly, legacy systems outdated, obsolete and unsupported IT infrastructure systems, hardware or processes pose an unacceptable level of risk. Our report found that without a plan to address legacy systems, the government's digital ambitions will struggle to be achieved. Then thirdly, vendor lock in if significant costs or reductions in functionality are associated with changing vendor, then we have vendor lock in where vendors can hold government hostage raise prices, require additional contracts or reduce performance. The public sector is dependent on a small number of large digital and technology providers such as Palantir, Microsoft, AWS, and the government appears to be worryingly comfortable with this.
And then fourth barrier was the lack of technology sovereignty. Whilst this overreliance on a small number of foreign vendors exists, the government can't set out to deliver its own sovereign digital agenda for the United Kingdom or fully support a competitive UK tech ecosystem. The government should set out a public sector definition of sovereignty. Palantir is a case study in three of the four barriers. Its Palantir Palantir relationship with the NHS began during the Covid 19 pandemic, when it was paid a nominal £1 fee to provide what its chief executive, Louis Mosley, described to us as aggregating data.
It is now hyped as being uniquely essential to the NHS mission to save lives. It is a clear example of growing vendor lock in, as well as our overreliance on foreign tech giants. Our report called on the government to commit to exercising the February 2027 break clause in the Federated Data Platform contract. Now, I want to thank the government for their response, which has come from DCMs, though I understand other departments were involved. So to welcome example of cross-government working, some parts of it are excellent. So particularly the commitment to develop a strategy within government digital service to end vendor lock in, that's a real step forward, as is the commitment to strong central coordination to drive progress on fixing legacy systems across the public sector, which is what we recommended.
An action plan is promised, as well as a remediation plan subject to security consideration. The government also reveals that 36 tech company employees have had access to either the federated data plan or specific data sets assigned
13:46
13:46
13:50
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Thank you very much. And it really is an honor to share to serve under your chairmanship. And I thank the honourable members and Right honourable members for attending this debate this afternoon. Before I begin my remarks, I hope you'll allow me to give the apologies for the absence of a long standing supporter of justice for Equitable Life policyholders. The right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington, who is sadly unable to join us this afternoon, but who has asked me to say that he has several constituents in his constituency, as we all do, who remain without full redress following the collapse of Equitable Life, and has asked me to mention those victims of the scandal in my speech today.
13:50
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
On the issue of stalwart supporters. He has been one. He has been a magnificent supporter , and I have been along to these debates on several years. And what I'm looking for is at least some prospect of a result, because we've done this year in, year out. And, you know, I, I still have constituents, you know, and I still support them. But what we need from the minister is at least some sign that we're not flogging a dead horse.
13:51
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Well, I thank the honourable gentleman, dare I say, my hon. Friend, because we've known each other for many, many years and he's been a stalwart supporter as well. And if he has enough patience and is able to listen to what I have to say, as I hope the minister will, you'll see. They will see that I'm offering certain ideas that I hope will be pursued, because it is about time this issue was wrapped up for good. I'm grateful to all those who've continued to campaign for justice, for the victims of Equitable Life and the scandal that followed, including the Equitable Members Action Group, whose work has helped to keep this issue before as parliamentarians, as the honourable member.
Just sorry, the right hon. Member just pointed out. This debate, of course, is more than just about money. It is about fairness, accountability and the relationship between the state and the people it is supposed to represent and protect. It's about whether people who worked hard, saved responsibly for their retirement, and trusted the regulatory safeguards established by Parliament should be left to bear the consequences of acknowledged government and regulatory failure. My central argument, Miss Furnace, is therefore straightforward. The state has accepted responsibility for serious regulatory maladministration that caused policyholders substantial financial losses, and yet the majority of those policyholders received only a fraction of the compensation for their losses.
That injustice remains unresolved, and I believe the government should now take practical steps to put it right. And I shall outline some of them in the. Yes, of course.
Just sorry, the right hon. Member just pointed out. This debate, of course, is more than just about money. It is about fairness, accountability and the relationship between the state and the people it is supposed to represent and protect. It's about whether people who worked hard, saved responsibly for their retirement, and trusted the regulatory safeguards established by Parliament should be left to bear the consequences of acknowledged government and regulatory failure. My central argument, Miss Furnace, is therefore straightforward. The state has accepted responsibility for serious regulatory maladministration that caused policyholders substantial financial losses, and yet the majority of those policyholders received only a fraction of the compensation for their losses.
That injustice remains unresolved, and I believe the government should now take practical steps to put it right. And I shall outline some of them in the. Yes, of course.
13:53
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Grateful to him for bringing forward this debate. Would he agree that one of the fundamental issues is who regulates the regulators? Because when the regulators fail, as they did in this case, ultimately the Ombudsman tried to regulate the regulators, but the regulators were too stubborn and to accept the recommendations of the ombudsman. So who's going to regulate the regulators?
13:53
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
I think that's above my pay grade. I'd say to the honourable gentleman. But the fact is that we all need to be vigilant that the regulators are properly regulated. And that is, I would imagine, up to us as parliamentarians to make sure that those who are charged with regulating or regulating the regulators do their job properly and stop this kind of injustice from ever happening again. But the fact is, it has happened, and many people have suffered. An equitable life was one of the biggest scandals in the history of UK financial services, when more than 1 million people lost a significant proportion of their hard earned retirement savings.
Those. These were people who did what successive governments encouraged them to do. They worked hard. They saved. They made provision for their later years rather than relying entirely upon the state. And they trusted that the regulatory system and this is. I hope I'm addressing the point the honourable gentleman made established by Parliament, would provide appropriate oversight and protect the public from serious failures in the financial services sector. But they were let down by government departments and regulators that failed to do their job to an acceptable standard. Now, following a four year inquiry, the Parliamentary Ombudsman found that policyholders losses were directly attributable to a decade of serious and serious regulatory maladministration.
The Ombudsman made ten determinations of maladministration and five of injustice, and concluded that the serial maladministration that had resulted in the true financial position of equitable life being concealed and misrepresented. The findings Miss Furnace, were exceptionally serious. The Ombudsman stated that the prudential regulation of the society had failed comprehensively and catastrophically, but crucially, this was not a failure of the regulatory system itself. It was a failure properly to implement, in this particular case, the system of regulation that Parliament itself had enacted. The Ombudsman also made it clear that no other party could be said to be at fault, because the regulator's acting, with the advice and assistance of the government's actuary department, had acted with maladministration.
These were not merely the complaints of disappointed investors, they were the formal findings by our independent parliamentary watchdog. After a forensic and lengthy investigation, the Ombudsman recommended that the government establish and fund a compensation scheme to put those who had suffered a relative loss back into the position that they would have been in had the maladministration not occurred. In 2010, the government accepted the Ombudsman's findings in full. It acknowledged losses of £4.1 billion, yet only 1.5 billion was actually allocated to compensation . And that is the fundamental unfairness of the victims. The victims of this scandal want to put right of the policyholders affected, affected and forgive me for all the statistics, but they are relevant.
37,000 with profits annuitants or are receiving full compensation through annual payments for life. So far so good. However, approximately 895 other policyholders 895,000 other policyholders, I should say, received a one off payment amounting to just 22.4% of their acknowledged losses, barely one fifth of the compensation needed to address the losses that the government accepted had resulted from maladministration. Now, according to figures supplied by Emag, the Equitable Members Action Group, these policyholders are still owed £2.6 billion before any consideration of interest. So I ask the Minister to reflect on what that means in human terms.
For many people, retirement savings represent decades of sacrifice. They are the savings that are put aside. Instead of taking holidays, improving homes or spending more freely during their working lives on themselves and their children. Yes of course.
Those. These were people who did what successive governments encouraged them to do. They worked hard. They saved. They made provision for their later years rather than relying entirely upon the state. And they trusted that the regulatory system and this is. I hope I'm addressing the point the honourable gentleman made established by Parliament, would provide appropriate oversight and protect the public from serious failures in the financial services sector. But they were let down by government departments and regulators that failed to do their job to an acceptable standard. Now, following a four year inquiry, the Parliamentary Ombudsman found that policyholders losses were directly attributable to a decade of serious and serious regulatory maladministration.
The Ombudsman made ten determinations of maladministration and five of injustice, and concluded that the serial maladministration that had resulted in the true financial position of equitable life being concealed and misrepresented. The findings Miss Furnace, were exceptionally serious. The Ombudsman stated that the prudential regulation of the society had failed comprehensively and catastrophically, but crucially, this was not a failure of the regulatory system itself. It was a failure properly to implement, in this particular case, the system of regulation that Parliament itself had enacted. The Ombudsman also made it clear that no other party could be said to be at fault, because the regulator's acting, with the advice and assistance of the government's actuary department, had acted with maladministration.
These were not merely the complaints of disappointed investors, they were the formal findings by our independent parliamentary watchdog. After a forensic and lengthy investigation, the Ombudsman recommended that the government establish and fund a compensation scheme to put those who had suffered a relative loss back into the position that they would have been in had the maladministration not occurred. In 2010, the government accepted the Ombudsman's findings in full. It acknowledged losses of £4.1 billion, yet only 1.5 billion was actually allocated to compensation . And that is the fundamental unfairness of the victims. The victims of this scandal want to put right of the policyholders affected, affected and forgive me for all the statistics, but they are relevant.
37,000 with profits annuitants or are receiving full compensation through annual payments for life. So far so good. However, approximately 895 other policyholders 895,000 other policyholders, I should say, received a one off payment amounting to just 22.4% of their acknowledged losses, barely one fifth of the compensation needed to address the losses that the government accepted had resulted from maladministration. Now, according to figures supplied by Emag, the Equitable Members Action Group, these policyholders are still owed £2.6 billion before any consideration of interest. So I ask the Minister to reflect on what that means in human terms.
For many people, retirement savings represent decades of sacrifice. They are the savings that are put aside. Instead of taking holidays, improving homes or spending more freely during their working lives on themselves and their children. Yes of course.
13:57
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Can I thank him for the excellent job that he's doing? Speaking on behalf of all of our constituents, one of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me that he would be receiving £20,000 a year today had he invested his money elsewhere, and he only invested it where he did because he believed that the state was saying it was safe to do so. So I thank him for putting up the fight on behalf of those people. And I hope that the recommendations that he's going to come to will be listened to carefully by the government.
13:58
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Well, I thank my hon. Friend for that point, because what happened with equitable meant the difference between a comfortable retirement and a struggling retirement as his constituents and constituents of every other member in this room will know full well. It's. So the monies were intended to provide security in old age. The investment in the policy to pay household bills, to fund care, to reduce dependence on family members and the taxpayer. But the financial losses that people have suffered in very many cases, as my honourable friend has pointed out, fundamentally changed their retirement. Fundamentally, it has meant struggling with everyday expenses, preventing planned support for children and grandchildren, and facing later life with far less independence than anticipated.
For some, it has led to the loss of the family, home, depression, stress and anxiety and there are plenty of examples of that. Many, of course, feel intense guilt for having invested their family's savings with the most respected, the longest standing and supposedly the safest pension company at the time, only to see it fall apart and dissolve. The government of the day argued that the one, the £1.5 billion allocated for compensation was fair to both policyholders and taxpayers. And of course, public money must always be spent responsibly. The interest of taxpayers must always be considered.
But I have to say that if you were to ask, I think most people would agree that redress of just 22% of someone's acknowledged losses would not be fair. Probably far from it, and particularly where the state has accepted responsibility for losses caused by its own failures. I expect most people would think that there is an undeniably compelling case for providing full redress. Sorry. Who wants to go first?
For some, it has led to the loss of the family, home, depression, stress and anxiety and there are plenty of examples of that. Many, of course, feel intense guilt for having invested their family's savings with the most respected, the longest standing and supposedly the safest pension company at the time, only to see it fall apart and dissolve. The government of the day argued that the one, the £1.5 billion allocated for compensation was fair to both policyholders and taxpayers. And of course, public money must always be spent responsibly. The interest of taxpayers must always be considered.
But I have to say that if you were to ask, I think most people would agree that redress of just 22% of someone's acknowledged losses would not be fair. Probably far from it, and particularly where the state has accepted responsibility for losses caused by its own failures. I expect most people would think that there is an undeniably compelling case for providing full redress. Sorry. Who wants to go first?
14:00
Speaker 7
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Speaker 7
Thank you. I'm grateful for my hon. Friend for giving way. A constituent of mine who's now 76 years old, changed jobs around the time of the collapse and was able to move his pension into a local authority pension scheme, although the transfer value took a hit of 26%. Does my hon. Friend agree with my constituent that there must be greater transparency on this issue, and we must have meaningful reform of financial regulation so that the experience of my constituents and so many others are not repeated.
14:00
14:00
Speaker 8
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Speaker 8
I thank him for giving way. As my hon. Friend has just pointed out, there are many connected issues here that have affected people's trust in pensions. This scandal. The minister will know I've also been a very vocal champion of of those who have been affected by the lack of indexation for pre 1997 pensions. Does he share my concern that fundamentally the risk here is that that individuals choose not to invest in pensions because they lose faith, they lose faith that if something goes wrong, people will step in and put it right. And ultimately that will only cost more to the taxpayer.
As, as, as people don't make the sound choice that we want them to do so of saving for their retirement.
As, as, as people don't make the sound choice that we want them to do so of saving for their retirement.
14:01
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I certainly agree that at heart, at the heart of this matter is the issue of trust, because as people throughout our society lose trust in the institutions of government and the state, so we will find increasing chaos and increasing instability. Stability comes from trusting the institutions to deliver. And that trust is a two way process. So I thank him for the comments that he has made. The principle on this issue matters not just to equitable life policyholders, but as we've just been saying, but to wider public confidence in government and its regulatory institutions upon which we all rely.
And that goes back to points that have already been made. Aside from looking at full redress, there is another issue which I would urge the government to look at. Emag has calculated that as of the 31st of May 2025, approximately £171 million of money already allocated for compensation was held back by the Treasury rather than being paid to policyholders. Let me repeat that £170 million. £1 million held back already allocated. This is not new money. This is money that was already allocated that deserves serious attention. And it must surely be right that at least all of the value of the money actually allocated for compensation as far back as 2010, 16 years ago should reach those affected.
And I think it's important to understand the figures and what policyholders fear is the Treasury's plan. Of the £1.5 billion allocated in 2010, £625 million was assigned to compensate with profits. Annuitants £100 million was retained as a contingency against the possibility that those annuitants would live longer than expected, and £775 million was allocated to the remaining eligible policyholders. But importantly, Miss Furness, the £625 million allocation for Annuitants was a discounted figure, reflecting the present value at the time of future payments. The forecast cash cost of those annual payments was £836 million, right through to 2050.
Still a long a long way ahead of us. So the forecast total cash spend of the compensation scheme as a whole was 1.7 billion. I hope everybody is following these figures. According to the figures compiled by Emag, actual payments to with profits Annuitants were around £599 million by the 30th of May 2025, just over a year ago, compared with the forecast expenditure of approximately £646 million. That represents a difference of £47 million, and of the £775 million allocated to other policyholders, approximately £751 million was paid out, leaving a further 24 million unspent, together with the £100 million contingency, which Emag argues is no longer required for its stated purpose.
The total underspend as of May 2025 was set to be approximately £171 million. I'll make sure that the minister has these figures later, and of course, they'll all be written in Hansard. I recognise that the minister may wish to examine or even dispute these figures and the assumptions behind them, but I think we can agree that it is in everybody's interests that there is absolute clarity around this, and I hope that the government will provide that clarity. If funds have been allocated , but are not needed to meet the liabilities for which they are intended, then they should be used to compensate people who have still not received their full redress.
Those people are already known. Their losses have been calculated. There is therefore a strong case that additional payments could be administered without much cost and complexity, and releasing these funds would, of course, not address the issue of the full outstanding debt still owed, but it would be a positive step forward in this long running saga. And there is a particular group of people whose position deserves particular attention and for which an underspend could be used. Around 10,000 with profits annuitants were excluded from the compensation scheme because they bought their annuities before September 1992. Indeed, when the Equitable Life Payments Bill came before Parliament in 2010 and 2011, I tabled an amendment to that bill to bring those 10,000 with profits annuitants pre 1992 with profits annuitants into the scheme.
But that amendment sadly was lost. Now the argument for excluding was excluding them was that they couldn't have known about the true parlous state of equitable life at the time. But that does not remove the financial losses that they too suffered. And those annuitants were affected by the same underlying regulatory and maladministration and the near collapse of the society. They have seen their annuity payments drastically reduced, just as other annuitants have, and the Ombudsman's findings and recommendations did not distinguish between those who had taken out annuity annuities before or after September 1992. That distinction was a construct of the Treasury, not of the Ombudsman or the society.
These are amongst the oldest and most vulnerable victims of the scandal. Of course they must be. Many will now be at a very advanced age, and many more have sadly died already. Every year that passes reduces the opportunity for them to receive the redress that they have long sought. Justice delayed, of course, is justice denied, but has a particularly cruel consequence when the people waiting for it may not even live to see it delivered. The government should therefore now examine how the underspend could be used to bring these annuitants into the scheme. E-mag has suggested that payments could be distributed in proportion to their current annual annuity payments, avoiding the need for individual actuarial calculations.
The ex gratia payments made to them in 2013, following representations by MPs including myself and Emag, could be offset against any additional payments because they will be recorded. So I urge the Minister to look closely at what can be done here for those pre 1992 Annuitants still surviving. There aren't that many of them. As I've mentioned, there is an important core principle at stake here. The government, on behalf of the Crown in Parliament, has accepted the Ombudsman's findings and acknowledged £4.1 billion in losses attributable to maladministration. It has also calculated the specific losses suffered by individual policyholders.
When the state accepts responsibility for a mistake and identifies the financial harm caused, it should be prepared to provide proper redress. Government should not be exempt from the principles of accountability and fairness that it expects others to observe. Fuller compensation would also recognise the importance of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to our Constitution, our constitutional system, independent investigations and formal findings of maladministration must surely mean something. And if those findings are accepted but the recommended redress is not delivered, then public confidence, as we've already been saying, and points have already been made in the system, risks being further weakened.
I'd also suggest, Miss Furness, that further compensation would not be money spent to no positive effect. Quite the opposite. In fact, additional compensation would help people meet the costs of care and everyday living, support their families and contribute to local businesses and communities. And I've absolutely no doubt that a significant part would return to the Exchequer through taxation. So it's not all losses. More importantly though, it would give people back some of the financial security that was taken from them through failures for which the government has accepted responsibility. I'm going to conclude by asking the minister to address four specific questions, and I apologize for the lengthy nature of my introductory remarks.
But these points had to be made. These four specific questions are these. First, I would ask the minister that if he believes that in cases where the state has accepted responsibility for a failure , leading to financial loss for individuals, and that loss has been calculated by it, the default position should be to provide full redress. Secondly, I'd ask him to confirm that total cash expenditure on with profits annuitants was forecast to be £836 million. That. That figure was discounted to arrive at the 625 million allocation for those annuitants, and that actual payments to date are below forecast.
Thirdly, Miss Furness, I'd be grateful if the government would confirm whether the £100 million contingency fund I nearly said constituency fund remains necessary to cover the risk that with profits annuitants live longer than expected. If that contingency is no longer required for its stated purpose. Will the Minister commit to considering its use for further compensation? Finally, will the Minister agree to carefully examine the possibility of including the surviving Pre-september 1992 annuitants who were excluded from the compensation scheme? The victims of this scandal have waited long enough. That's why there are so many colleagues in the room today.
They did not create the regulatory failures that damaged their retirement savings. They followed the advice to save responsibly, trusted the system established by Parliament, and were let down by the institutions charged with protecting them. The government has acknowledged the wrongdoing. It acknowledged the losses. It established a compensation scheme, but that scheme left the overwhelming majority of affected policyholders, with only a small proportion of what they'd actually lost. Now, Miss Furness, we clearly cannot undo what's happened, but we can decide whether to leave this long standing injustice unresolved or to take practical steps now towards putting it properly right.
The government should review the unspent compensation funds, reconsider the conclusion, the exclusion of the pre 1992 annuitants, and set out a path towards full and fair redress. Miss Furness, those who lost their savings deserve more than just our sympathy. They deserve fairness and justice now through action by the government, not more empty words.
And that goes back to points that have already been made. Aside from looking at full redress, there is another issue which I would urge the government to look at. Emag has calculated that as of the 31st of May 2025, approximately £171 million of money already allocated for compensation was held back by the Treasury rather than being paid to policyholders. Let me repeat that £170 million. £1 million held back already allocated. This is not new money. This is money that was already allocated that deserves serious attention. And it must surely be right that at least all of the value of the money actually allocated for compensation as far back as 2010, 16 years ago should reach those affected.
And I think it's important to understand the figures and what policyholders fear is the Treasury's plan. Of the £1.5 billion allocated in 2010, £625 million was assigned to compensate with profits. Annuitants £100 million was retained as a contingency against the possibility that those annuitants would live longer than expected, and £775 million was allocated to the remaining eligible policyholders. But importantly, Miss Furness, the £625 million allocation for Annuitants was a discounted figure, reflecting the present value at the time of future payments. The forecast cash cost of those annual payments was £836 million, right through to 2050.
Still a long a long way ahead of us. So the forecast total cash spend of the compensation scheme as a whole was 1.7 billion. I hope everybody is following these figures. According to the figures compiled by Emag, actual payments to with profits Annuitants were around £599 million by the 30th of May 2025, just over a year ago, compared with the forecast expenditure of approximately £646 million. That represents a difference of £47 million, and of the £775 million allocated to other policyholders, approximately £751 million was paid out, leaving a further 24 million unspent, together with the £100 million contingency, which Emag argues is no longer required for its stated purpose.
The total underspend as of May 2025 was set to be approximately £171 million. I'll make sure that the minister has these figures later, and of course, they'll all be written in Hansard. I recognise that the minister may wish to examine or even dispute these figures and the assumptions behind them, but I think we can agree that it is in everybody's interests that there is absolute clarity around this, and I hope that the government will provide that clarity. If funds have been allocated , but are not needed to meet the liabilities for which they are intended, then they should be used to compensate people who have still not received their full redress.
Those people are already known. Their losses have been calculated. There is therefore a strong case that additional payments could be administered without much cost and complexity, and releasing these funds would, of course, not address the issue of the full outstanding debt still owed, but it would be a positive step forward in this long running saga. And there is a particular group of people whose position deserves particular attention and for which an underspend could be used. Around 10,000 with profits annuitants were excluded from the compensation scheme because they bought their annuities before September 1992. Indeed, when the Equitable Life Payments Bill came before Parliament in 2010 and 2011, I tabled an amendment to that bill to bring those 10,000 with profits annuitants pre 1992 with profits annuitants into the scheme.
But that amendment sadly was lost. Now the argument for excluding was excluding them was that they couldn't have known about the true parlous state of equitable life at the time. But that does not remove the financial losses that they too suffered. And those annuitants were affected by the same underlying regulatory and maladministration and the near collapse of the society. They have seen their annuity payments drastically reduced, just as other annuitants have, and the Ombudsman's findings and recommendations did not distinguish between those who had taken out annuity annuities before or after September 1992. That distinction was a construct of the Treasury, not of the Ombudsman or the society.
These are amongst the oldest and most vulnerable victims of the scandal. Of course they must be. Many will now be at a very advanced age, and many more have sadly died already. Every year that passes reduces the opportunity for them to receive the redress that they have long sought. Justice delayed, of course, is justice denied, but has a particularly cruel consequence when the people waiting for it may not even live to see it delivered. The government should therefore now examine how the underspend could be used to bring these annuitants into the scheme. E-mag has suggested that payments could be distributed in proportion to their current annual annuity payments, avoiding the need for individual actuarial calculations.
The ex gratia payments made to them in 2013, following representations by MPs including myself and Emag, could be offset against any additional payments because they will be recorded. So I urge the Minister to look closely at what can be done here for those pre 1992 Annuitants still surviving. There aren't that many of them. As I've mentioned, there is an important core principle at stake here. The government, on behalf of the Crown in Parliament, has accepted the Ombudsman's findings and acknowledged £4.1 billion in losses attributable to maladministration. It has also calculated the specific losses suffered by individual policyholders.
When the state accepts responsibility for a mistake and identifies the financial harm caused, it should be prepared to provide proper redress. Government should not be exempt from the principles of accountability and fairness that it expects others to observe. Fuller compensation would also recognise the importance of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to our Constitution, our constitutional system, independent investigations and formal findings of maladministration must surely mean something. And if those findings are accepted but the recommended redress is not delivered, then public confidence, as we've already been saying, and points have already been made in the system, risks being further weakened.
I'd also suggest, Miss Furness, that further compensation would not be money spent to no positive effect. Quite the opposite. In fact, additional compensation would help people meet the costs of care and everyday living, support their families and contribute to local businesses and communities. And I've absolutely no doubt that a significant part would return to the Exchequer through taxation. So it's not all losses. More importantly though, it would give people back some of the financial security that was taken from them through failures for which the government has accepted responsibility. I'm going to conclude by asking the minister to address four specific questions, and I apologize for the lengthy nature of my introductory remarks.
But these points had to be made. These four specific questions are these. First, I would ask the minister that if he believes that in cases where the state has accepted responsibility for a failure , leading to financial loss for individuals, and that loss has been calculated by it, the default position should be to provide full redress. Secondly, I'd ask him to confirm that total cash expenditure on with profits annuitants was forecast to be £836 million. That. That figure was discounted to arrive at the 625 million allocation for those annuitants, and that actual payments to date are below forecast.
Thirdly, Miss Furness, I'd be grateful if the government would confirm whether the £100 million contingency fund I nearly said constituency fund remains necessary to cover the risk that with profits annuitants live longer than expected. If that contingency is no longer required for its stated purpose. Will the Minister commit to considering its use for further compensation? Finally, will the Minister agree to carefully examine the possibility of including the surviving Pre-september 1992 annuitants who were excluded from the compensation scheme? The victims of this scandal have waited long enough. That's why there are so many colleagues in the room today.
They did not create the regulatory failures that damaged their retirement savings. They followed the advice to save responsibly, trusted the system established by Parliament, and were let down by the institutions charged with protecting them. The government has acknowledged the wrongdoing. It acknowledged the losses. It established a compensation scheme, but that scheme left the overwhelming majority of affected policyholders, with only a small proportion of what they'd actually lost. Now, Miss Furness, we clearly cannot undo what's happened, but we can decide whether to leave this long standing injustice unresolved or to take practical steps now towards putting it properly right.
The government should review the unspent compensation funds, reconsider the conclusion, the exclusion of the pre 1992 annuitants, and set out a path towards full and fair redress. Miss Furness, those who lost their savings deserve more than just our sympathy. They deserve fairness and justice now through action by the government, not more empty words.
14:12
14:12
Speaker 9
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Speaker 9
First of all, can I say it's a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship? A big thank you to the honourable member for Leeds North East for setting the scene incredibly well, as he always does in subject matters that he brings to Westminster Hall and in the chamber. And again, he's been very much to the fore in leading the campaign, for this sets out clearly the injustice suffered by Equitable Life policyholders, and, I believe, the compelling case for proper compensation. I do not intend to repeat all the things that the honourable gentleman has referred to, but I must say this, that the core argument underlying this unresolved issue is profoundly important, that where the state accepts responsibility for a mistake and acknowledges the financial losses following from it, it should the state should make good in full.
And I fully recognise that, as was the case in 2010, and the state of the public finances is not as we would wish, and that the competing demands on the government are legion. But there are some principles that have to be considered. We should uphold at all costs. I hope that the government will set out a path to ensuring proper justice and fairness for those affected, as has rightly done in other important cases. And for the remainder of my time, I'd like to focus on one specific issue that I believe requires immediate attention and answers from the minister.
I'm always pleased to see minister, and the minister can give us the answers and the reassurance that we seek today on behalf of our constituents, the apparent underspend in the existing compensation scheme and with our funds originally set aside to compensate victims, are being retained when they could have been used to provide the redress. And at the heart of this is a simple question. If government has acknowledged that people suffered losses because of serious regulatory maladministration, and if money was allocated to compensate those people but is not going to be spent for a particular cohort or a purpose, should that money return to the Treasury, or should it go to the people who were wronged?
I would suggest the latter. This is not an abstract accounting question. It's a question of fairness and of public accountability. And let me start with the figures. In 2010, government allocated 1.5 billion to compensate victims of the Equitable Life scandal, and that allocation was divided into three principal elements 625 million for the with profits and unit via annual payments for life, £100 million held by the Treasury as a contingency in case they live longer than expected, and 775 million for other policyholders. The 625 million allocation for the. With profits onions was not the total amount of cash expected to be paid over the lifetime of the scheme.
It was a discounted valuation of future payments. So Emag has established that the forecast cash cost of those payments was £836 million, extending to 2015. The distinction matters, Madam Chair, very clearly because government must be transparent about what was actually committed, when and what was the the forecast to be spent and what is now expected to be required. The the library. And we thank the library always for their for their information, they give us. And I take one comment out of the library comments, if I can just give up in 2010 to make payments to eligible policyholders who had suffered a relative loss, meaning that policyholders would receive less under the equitable life policy than they would if they had invested with a different company.
And the honourable gentleman in his intervention earlier on referred to the fact that people seem equitable life and says this is the one to invest your money in. But guess what? It didn't work out. And it's very clear that that has been the issue right down the line. The Emag figures are also state that approximately £170 million of compensation funding was expected to be unspent as of the 31st of May of 2025. The three elements of that are clear. Firstly, approximately 47 million is from the lower than forecast annual payments to the. With profits, profits, onions.
Secondly, the £100 million contingency held back in case those onions live longer than expected, and the fact that annual payments to onions is significantly below forecast strongly suggests that the £100 million contingency is no longer needed. And thirdly, approximately 24 million of the 775 million allocated for other policyholders was unspent. For what reasons are not clear, Minister, answers are needed, and that's one of the things that I would like to see answers on at all possible. I appreciate the Minister may wish to distinguish between money that has not yet been spent, money reserved for future liabilities, and money that can genuinely be released.
This or that is a legitimate distinction. I understand that, but it makes a need for transparent accounting all the more important. So hopefully I'm quite sure that the minister will will give us the answer that we're seeking in relation to that government must explain to those affected precisely how much was forecast to be spent, how much has actually been spent, and what liabilities are thought to remain outstanding. Forgive me, Mr. Minister. I must ask this question. I've got to put it on the record behalf of my constituents. Victims of this scandal are concerned that, as well as having to bear a cut of their acknowledged losses of some roundabout, 78%.
For some, the Treasury may be trying to pocket over 10% of the limited compensation that was allocated through clever accounting tricks. That's the question has got to be asked. It's got to be on the record and the minister, I believe, has got the answer to that. And can the minister please confirm that the 625 million allocation for the with profits, onions was calculated on a discounted basis, and can the Minister also confirm that at the outset of the compensation scheme, cash payments to that cohort were forecast to total some 836 million. So the total cash spend under the scheme was forecast to be around £1.7 billion.
If these figures are correct, and I understand that they are based on government published documents, therefore, it would seem that the government has to acknowledge that the figures are correct. Ministerial correspondence and the freedom of Information replies which have been are on the record. I would ask the Minister for an explanation as to why those funds cannot be redirected towards further compensation right now, because they should be. And if they're not correct, we need to understand how and why. Although I suspect that the figures are government figures, they are correct. The victims of maladministration deserve to know whether the government is holding on to money that could be put to the use that Parliament intended in the United States for the Equitable Life Payment Scheme, and I ask that if the government disputes the figures, I would ask it to publish its own detailed breakdown and analysis explaining the difference, which will give us all a chance to come back on that.
I conclude with this, Madam Chair, our conscious that others want to speak. If the 100 million contingency remains necessary to cover longevity risk, then let's see the evidence. If money can be released, I'd ask the minister to set out a plan for doing so. I hope that can be the answer today to all our queries. If it is, then that would be a massive step forward. So I want to thank government for the recognition of help needed for my constituents, and there has been that. But I do believe that more needs to be done right now, and I look forward to hearing from the minister as to how this can be accomplished.
Thank you very much.
And I fully recognise that, as was the case in 2010, and the state of the public finances is not as we would wish, and that the competing demands on the government are legion. But there are some principles that have to be considered. We should uphold at all costs. I hope that the government will set out a path to ensuring proper justice and fairness for those affected, as has rightly done in other important cases. And for the remainder of my time, I'd like to focus on one specific issue that I believe requires immediate attention and answers from the minister.
I'm always pleased to see minister, and the minister can give us the answers and the reassurance that we seek today on behalf of our constituents, the apparent underspend in the existing compensation scheme and with our funds originally set aside to compensate victims, are being retained when they could have been used to provide the redress. And at the heart of this is a simple question. If government has acknowledged that people suffered losses because of serious regulatory maladministration, and if money was allocated to compensate those people but is not going to be spent for a particular cohort or a purpose, should that money return to the Treasury, or should it go to the people who were wronged?
I would suggest the latter. This is not an abstract accounting question. It's a question of fairness and of public accountability. And let me start with the figures. In 2010, government allocated 1.5 billion to compensate victims of the Equitable Life scandal, and that allocation was divided into three principal elements 625 million for the with profits and unit via annual payments for life, £100 million held by the Treasury as a contingency in case they live longer than expected, and 775 million for other policyholders. The 625 million allocation for the. With profits onions was not the total amount of cash expected to be paid over the lifetime of the scheme.
It was a discounted valuation of future payments. So Emag has established that the forecast cash cost of those payments was £836 million, extending to 2015. The distinction matters, Madam Chair, very clearly because government must be transparent about what was actually committed, when and what was the the forecast to be spent and what is now expected to be required. The the library. And we thank the library always for their for their information, they give us. And I take one comment out of the library comments, if I can just give up in 2010 to make payments to eligible policyholders who had suffered a relative loss, meaning that policyholders would receive less under the equitable life policy than they would if they had invested with a different company.
And the honourable gentleman in his intervention earlier on referred to the fact that people seem equitable life and says this is the one to invest your money in. But guess what? It didn't work out. And it's very clear that that has been the issue right down the line. The Emag figures are also state that approximately £170 million of compensation funding was expected to be unspent as of the 31st of May of 2025. The three elements of that are clear. Firstly, approximately 47 million is from the lower than forecast annual payments to the. With profits, profits, onions.
Secondly, the £100 million contingency held back in case those onions live longer than expected, and the fact that annual payments to onions is significantly below forecast strongly suggests that the £100 million contingency is no longer needed. And thirdly, approximately 24 million of the 775 million allocated for other policyholders was unspent. For what reasons are not clear, Minister, answers are needed, and that's one of the things that I would like to see answers on at all possible. I appreciate the Minister may wish to distinguish between money that has not yet been spent, money reserved for future liabilities, and money that can genuinely be released.
This or that is a legitimate distinction. I understand that, but it makes a need for transparent accounting all the more important. So hopefully I'm quite sure that the minister will will give us the answer that we're seeking in relation to that government must explain to those affected precisely how much was forecast to be spent, how much has actually been spent, and what liabilities are thought to remain outstanding. Forgive me, Mr. Minister. I must ask this question. I've got to put it on the record behalf of my constituents. Victims of this scandal are concerned that, as well as having to bear a cut of their acknowledged losses of some roundabout, 78%.
For some, the Treasury may be trying to pocket over 10% of the limited compensation that was allocated through clever accounting tricks. That's the question has got to be asked. It's got to be on the record and the minister, I believe, has got the answer to that. And can the minister please confirm that the 625 million allocation for the with profits, onions was calculated on a discounted basis, and can the Minister also confirm that at the outset of the compensation scheme, cash payments to that cohort were forecast to total some 836 million. So the total cash spend under the scheme was forecast to be around £1.7 billion.
If these figures are correct, and I understand that they are based on government published documents, therefore, it would seem that the government has to acknowledge that the figures are correct. Ministerial correspondence and the freedom of Information replies which have been are on the record. I would ask the Minister for an explanation as to why those funds cannot be redirected towards further compensation right now, because they should be. And if they're not correct, we need to understand how and why. Although I suspect that the figures are government figures, they are correct. The victims of maladministration deserve to know whether the government is holding on to money that could be put to the use that Parliament intended in the United States for the Equitable Life Payment Scheme, and I ask that if the government disputes the figures, I would ask it to publish its own detailed breakdown and analysis explaining the difference, which will give us all a chance to come back on that.
I conclude with this, Madam Chair, our conscious that others want to speak. If the 100 million contingency remains necessary to cover longevity risk, then let's see the evidence. If money can be released, I'd ask the minister to set out a plan for doing so. I hope that can be the answer today to all our queries. If it is, then that would be a massive step forward. So I want to thank government for the recognition of help needed for my constituents, and there has been that. But I do believe that more needs to be done right now, and I look forward to hearing from the minister as to how this can be accomplished.
Thank you very much.
14:20
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The wind ups will begin at 238, so we are restricting the time time to five minutes each. Ruth Cadbury thank you. Vanessa. It's a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. And it's also I'm very grateful to my hon. Friend the member for Leeds North East for securing securing this debate. He has been limpet like on this campaign for for justice, for equitable life victims for 17 years, as I know other members of this House. And it's also a pleasure to to follow the honourable member from Northern Ireland, who asked some very pertinent questions of the government Minister, and I look forward to the Minister's responses.
And I'm sorry once again to be standing up on behalf of my constituents who faced a clear injustice over many years, and I know at least four constituents who have been impacted. And it's likely there are many more. And I want to touch on a slightly wider theme here today, the subject of injustice caused what by what I can only describe as a series of financial scams and a weak response by successive governments. This isn't just about the equitable life scandal. Since I first entered this House in 2015, I've spoken up on the loan charge scandal, the Football Index scandal, the London Capital and Finance scandal and now again, the equitable life scandal.
What do all of these scandals have in common? The victims suffer financial hardship. One constituent affected by this particular scandal was estimated to have had over £20,000 taken from him, taken a key word, not lost but taken. And this is something that campaigners who were fleeced by the campaign, by the collapse of Football Index, made sure to tell me use the word taken, not lost. Ruth. A wallet is lost behind a sofa. Money is taken from a wallet by a crook. My constituent is not alone. Many people have had money taken from them as a result of this scandal.
Many, as others have said, are now much older. My constituents, who I mentioned earlier, is in his 80s, and this is precisely the stage of life when people need money for social care for their families, or simply to enjoy their remaining lives. This should be a time when people can relax, but they can't. We've seen too many cases over the past 30 years where the actions of private companies have led to constituents suffering, and the Football Index scandal saw one constituent have £10,000 taken another. The failure of the collapse of London Capital and Finance saw a constituent of mine have £120,000 taken, and in both.
And in the case of Equitable Life, it's clear that the regulators regulators which exist to protect our constituents have failed to act. So why does this matter? First, our constituents end up having money taken from them and their lives turned upside down. Secondly, the government has to step in and provide financial compensation, taxpayers money. But too often the the compensation is inadequate. And some, as my honourable friend has said, don't get any money at all. It is right the government provided compensation scheme, compensation for my constituents and for others who suffered as a result of this sort of injustice, but we shouldn't have got here in the first place.
The Equitable Life scandal is a reminder of what happens when regulators fail to act, and when private companies operate in an underhand manner and get away with it. And I believe that over the past decade, we've seen too many regulators become hollowed out when they either fail to act at all or act too late. And I feel somewhat nervous of even my own party in government talking about doing away with regulators. We need regulators. Sadly, there will always be scammers. So it's the government and it's the taxpayers. And ultimately, often it's the victims who end up picking the tab.
When operators act against the honest aspirations of hard working people. And far too often in these scandals, the private companies and the directors get off scot free. In many cases, they get to go on to make more money or to fleece and to fleece someone else. I know that the Equitable Members Action Group continues to campaign on behalf of those affected, and has continued and, and has argued that there needs to be greater transparency from the Treasury about the remaining money that's not been allocated to victims. As previous speakers have have touched on. I hope the Treasury can engage with and meet those campaigning on this injustice.
I hope this debate serves as an opportunity for this House to remember the importance of having regulators that are able to act and able to act swiftly.
And I'm sorry once again to be standing up on behalf of my constituents who faced a clear injustice over many years, and I know at least four constituents who have been impacted. And it's likely there are many more. And I want to touch on a slightly wider theme here today, the subject of injustice caused what by what I can only describe as a series of financial scams and a weak response by successive governments. This isn't just about the equitable life scandal. Since I first entered this House in 2015, I've spoken up on the loan charge scandal, the Football Index scandal, the London Capital and Finance scandal and now again, the equitable life scandal.
What do all of these scandals have in common? The victims suffer financial hardship. One constituent affected by this particular scandal was estimated to have had over £20,000 taken from him, taken a key word, not lost but taken. And this is something that campaigners who were fleeced by the campaign, by the collapse of Football Index, made sure to tell me use the word taken, not lost. Ruth. A wallet is lost behind a sofa. Money is taken from a wallet by a crook. My constituent is not alone. Many people have had money taken from them as a result of this scandal.
Many, as others have said, are now much older. My constituents, who I mentioned earlier, is in his 80s, and this is precisely the stage of life when people need money for social care for their families, or simply to enjoy their remaining lives. This should be a time when people can relax, but they can't. We've seen too many cases over the past 30 years where the actions of private companies have led to constituents suffering, and the Football Index scandal saw one constituent have £10,000 taken another. The failure of the collapse of London Capital and Finance saw a constituent of mine have £120,000 taken, and in both.
And in the case of Equitable Life, it's clear that the regulators regulators which exist to protect our constituents have failed to act. So why does this matter? First, our constituents end up having money taken from them and their lives turned upside down. Secondly, the government has to step in and provide financial compensation, taxpayers money. But too often the the compensation is inadequate. And some, as my honourable friend has said, don't get any money at all. It is right the government provided compensation scheme, compensation for my constituents and for others who suffered as a result of this sort of injustice, but we shouldn't have got here in the first place.
The Equitable Life scandal is a reminder of what happens when regulators fail to act, and when private companies operate in an underhand manner and get away with it. And I believe that over the past decade, we've seen too many regulators become hollowed out when they either fail to act at all or act too late. And I feel somewhat nervous of even my own party in government talking about doing away with regulators. We need regulators. Sadly, there will always be scammers. So it's the government and it's the taxpayers. And ultimately, often it's the victims who end up picking the tab.
When operators act against the honest aspirations of hard working people. And far too often in these scandals, the private companies and the directors get off scot free. In many cases, they get to go on to make more money or to fleece and to fleece someone else. I know that the Equitable Members Action Group continues to campaign on behalf of those affected, and has continued and, and has argued that there needs to be greater transparency from the Treasury about the remaining money that's not been allocated to victims. As previous speakers have have touched on. I hope the Treasury can engage with and meet those campaigning on this injustice.
I hope this debate serves as an opportunity for this House to remember the importance of having regulators that are able to act and able to act swiftly.
14:24
14:24
14:24
14:24
Speaker 10
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Speaker 10
It's a it's a it's a pleasure to follow the honourable member for Brentford, Brentford and and I do congratulate the honourable member for for Leeds North East, for the for the way in which he brought this issue forward, the the the way he articulated the the case which I thoroughly, thoroughly endorse and indeed the points which have been made by all speakers so far, I could. But I won't, and there won't be time anyway to to repeat them. So all I will say is that is that is that I was engaged in these debates prior to my nine year sabbatical from this place in 2015, and I thought at that stage, particularly after the government at least accepted the the Ombudsman's case, they didn't provide sufficient compensation, of course, at the time, but we were making progress at the time.
I assumed by the time I got back nine years later that this matter would be resolved and there would no longer be an issue. However, we are exactly no further forward than, than than we were back in 2015. I'll gladly give way.
I assumed by the time I got back nine years later that this matter would be resolved and there would no longer be an issue. However, we are exactly no further forward than, than than we were back in 2015. I'll gladly give way.
14:26
Speaker 11
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Speaker 11
I'll thank the honourable gentleman for giving way and pay tribute to the member for Leeds North West as well. I have to say exactly the same thing happened to me. I have had my nine year sabbatical. I have been talking about this for five years before I. And I wish to pay tribute really to the late Michael Oliver, who lived in my constituency. He's one of the 1500 people who were affected by this absolute scandal. And I'm disappointed to find that I'm back here 16 years later, running through the same flipping arguments with the honourable gentleman.
Agree.
Agree.
14:26
Speaker 10
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Speaker 10
Okay, well, perhaps we should form the nine year sabbatical. club and and compare this with other issues which have simply not, not moved forward. As the honourable member for North Leeds North East explained, this is this is entirely down to regulatory maladministration and failure, this government failure. Yes, there were a lot of. I think the honourable member for Brentford implies that there was there were crooks involved in this, but certainly money was taken improperly in this case, and there was a failure on the part of government to, to, to, to protect investors in the way that they they should have done at the time.
I would say gently. I do remember at the time that the the announced package of 1.5 billion was made, the then opposition. But oppositions do this. And so I'm not making I'm not going to make a punch and Judy point, but did complain that that was insufficient at the time. So here is an opportunity for a Labour government to, to actually stand up to the to the to the criticisms it raised at that at that time and and address this issue as the honourable member for Leeds North East rightly said, there is still money in the pot.
I mean, if more than a third of the of the money that was identified as needed in compensation, the 4.1 billion was actually provided through the 1.5 billion package from the from the government. Why is it that that my constituents that I talked to, who who are still very embittered, understandably about this situation, are only getting 22.4%, you know, the sums don't add up. But as the honourable member for Leeds North East explained, that's because of the way this particular case has been has been cut up. It's also, I think, important to perhaps identify that the the the minister who will be responding responded to one of my my honourable colleague, the member for for for North Shropshire back in March this this year, saying that that that the remaining funds would be on track to distribute, I'll quote him on track to distribute the remainder of the 1.5 billion as planned in annual payments to eligible policyholders.
So, I mean, at least if that could be done so that those who, who, who should be receiving the compensation actually receive that compensation, that would be great. Although again, it is insufficient. It's perhaps best to to humanise this in my in my view, there are many constituents who, who brought their cases to me. The the strong sense of embitterment that has been caused as a result of this. And also in a constituency like mine where there are a large number of, of, of people who are self-employed but still living on the margins, who scrimped and saved and invested for their future and their pensions and, and looked for a reputable company and thought that Equitable Life was that company and invested.
One, for example, is Howard, who says that in 1978, I started to save with what he understood at the time to be the best company he could find, Equitable life. I was self-employed, living and working in my Cornish village where I was born and brought up and still live after 86 years with my wife, who now has dementia and is registered blind. And now we struggle to pay for, but now rely on others to do everything for us like food, cleaning, driving and even twice every day carers come to attend. Both of us. This is shocking.
This is robbery by our government. Theresa opened a small monthly payment with Equitable Life personal pension plan and a separate bond, both in 1995, when Equitable Life ceased business, I transferred the small pension amount to to link it to a work pension I had. But she was supposed to be retired. She's now having to work part time in order to make ends meet. I've endeavoured to save as best I am able, to which all governments encourage us to do. However, after all this time, I do not think we will ever receive what is owed to us.
Surely we can reassure these people that they will get what they are due. And I congratulate the honourable member for Leeds North East and all others engaged in this. I do hope that the Minister is listening and will address it. Thank you, Miss Bernice.
I would say gently. I do remember at the time that the the announced package of 1.5 billion was made, the then opposition. But oppositions do this. And so I'm not making I'm not going to make a punch and Judy point, but did complain that that was insufficient at the time. So here is an opportunity for a Labour government to, to actually stand up to the to the to the criticisms it raised at that at that time and and address this issue as the honourable member for Leeds North East rightly said, there is still money in the pot.
I mean, if more than a third of the of the money that was identified as needed in compensation, the 4.1 billion was actually provided through the 1.5 billion package from the from the government. Why is it that that my constituents that I talked to, who who are still very embittered, understandably about this situation, are only getting 22.4%, you know, the sums don't add up. But as the honourable member for Leeds North East explained, that's because of the way this particular case has been has been cut up. It's also, I think, important to perhaps identify that the the the minister who will be responding responded to one of my my honourable colleague, the member for for for North Shropshire back in March this this year, saying that that that the remaining funds would be on track to distribute, I'll quote him on track to distribute the remainder of the 1.5 billion as planned in annual payments to eligible policyholders.
So, I mean, at least if that could be done so that those who, who, who should be receiving the compensation actually receive that compensation, that would be great. Although again, it is insufficient. It's perhaps best to to humanise this in my in my view, there are many constituents who, who brought their cases to me. The the strong sense of embitterment that has been caused as a result of this. And also in a constituency like mine where there are a large number of, of, of people who are self-employed but still living on the margins, who scrimped and saved and invested for their future and their pensions and, and looked for a reputable company and thought that Equitable Life was that company and invested.
One, for example, is Howard, who says that in 1978, I started to save with what he understood at the time to be the best company he could find, Equitable life. I was self-employed, living and working in my Cornish village where I was born and brought up and still live after 86 years with my wife, who now has dementia and is registered blind. And now we struggle to pay for, but now rely on others to do everything for us like food, cleaning, driving and even twice every day carers come to attend. Both of us. This is shocking.
This is robbery by our government. Theresa opened a small monthly payment with Equitable Life personal pension plan and a separate bond, both in 1995, when Equitable Life ceased business, I transferred the small pension amount to to link it to a work pension I had. But she was supposed to be retired. She's now having to work part time in order to make ends meet. I've endeavoured to save as best I am able, to which all governments encourage us to do. However, after all this time, I do not think we will ever receive what is owed to us.
Surely we can reassure these people that they will get what they are due. And I congratulate the honourable member for Leeds North East and all others engaged in this. I do hope that the Minister is listening and will address it. Thank you, Miss Bernice.
14:31
14:31
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
I say, let's put this issue in context. The headline today is that we've now got 3 billion, £3 trillion of national debt, an increase of £1 trillion over the last six years. And that debt has largely accumulated because of neglect and bad policies from the Treasury. And the Treasury continues to talk about having interest rates at low levels and an inflation target of 2%. But we now know that consistently it allows inflation to be above a 2% and most recently, a 3.5%. And that again, erodes the value of people's pensions. So under successive governments, the Treasury has behaved appallingly in relation to pension those equitable life pensioners.
I congratulate the honourable member for Leeds North East on introducing this debate so well and securing the debate and asking the four pertinent questions and I nice, easy, simple questions. I hope that the Minister, in responding, will give an affirmative answer to each of them. My interest in this subject goes back many years, not only because I had constituents who were badly affected by the equitable life collapse, but also because I was at the time a a shadow Treasury minister at the time when the Treasury set up the Lord Penrose's inquiry into this scandal and the Penrose inquiry, which was initiated in 2001.
That was an example, again, of the Treasury delaying process in order to try and kick the can down the road. And although in fairness, the inquiry was set up in 2001 and the Lord Penrose reported to the relevant Treasury Minister, Ruth Kelly at the time in in December 2003, it was another 3 or 4 months before the Treasury deigned to publish that report. And then it was four years after that that we had ultimately the report from the Ombudsman and the Treasury set up the Penrose inquiry, deliberately preventing Penrose from actually finding issues around maladministration.
And so the Treasury is being complicit in denying the victims of regulatory failure, the compensation to which they should and still are entitled. And this is an appalling saga, and successive governments are responsible for allowing this to continue. And there's an opportunity for the minister today to change things and to restore confidence, public confidence in the government and the blob and the way in which these things are administered. And I asked the question earlier, who regulates the regulators? And people expect that if there is a regulator in place, that if that regulator falls down on his responsibilities, then there will be some redress, and that doesn't seem to be accepted at the highest levels in government.
So I hope that that can change. And this issue is not going to go away. And it's it's a tribute to the persistence of parliamentary colleagues and the Emag campaigners that and our constituents who are behind all this, who are saying, no, what's happened to this extra money? Why can't we have it paid out to us? And in the context of, as I said at the beginning, in the context of where we are in terms of national debt, this is very small beer, but it's not the money that's so important as the principle. And I think that the principle is overridingly in favour of paying out what is due to these people who were the victims of government maladministration.
I congratulate the honourable member for Leeds North East on introducing this debate so well and securing the debate and asking the four pertinent questions and I nice, easy, simple questions. I hope that the Minister, in responding, will give an affirmative answer to each of them. My interest in this subject goes back many years, not only because I had constituents who were badly affected by the equitable life collapse, but also because I was at the time a a shadow Treasury minister at the time when the Treasury set up the Lord Penrose's inquiry into this scandal and the Penrose inquiry, which was initiated in 2001.
That was an example, again, of the Treasury delaying process in order to try and kick the can down the road. And although in fairness, the inquiry was set up in 2001 and the Lord Penrose reported to the relevant Treasury Minister, Ruth Kelly at the time in in December 2003, it was another 3 or 4 months before the Treasury deigned to publish that report. And then it was four years after that that we had ultimately the report from the Ombudsman and the Treasury set up the Penrose inquiry, deliberately preventing Penrose from actually finding issues around maladministration.
And so the Treasury is being complicit in denying the victims of regulatory failure, the compensation to which they should and still are entitled. And this is an appalling saga, and successive governments are responsible for allowing this to continue. And there's an opportunity for the minister today to change things and to restore confidence, public confidence in the government and the blob and the way in which these things are administered. And I asked the question earlier, who regulates the regulators? And people expect that if there is a regulator in place, that if that regulator falls down on his responsibilities, then there will be some redress, and that doesn't seem to be accepted at the highest levels in government.
So I hope that that can change. And this issue is not going to go away. And it's it's a tribute to the persistence of parliamentary colleagues and the Emag campaigners that and our constituents who are behind all this, who are saying, no, what's happened to this extra money? Why can't we have it paid out to us? And in the context of, as I said at the beginning, in the context of where we are in terms of national debt, this is very small beer, but it's not the money that's so important as the principle. And I think that the principle is overridingly in favour of paying out what is due to these people who were the victims of government maladministration.
14:35
14:35
14:35
Speaker 13
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Speaker 13
Miss Furness. It's a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. And many thanks indeed to the member for Leeds North East for such a comprehensive opening remarks to this debate. Certainly for those of us who've been in Parliament slightly less time, it was a very useful reminder of how we got to to where we are today. The 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 own constituents in Richmond Park.
Approximately 2000 people in every single constituency across the country has lost pension savings because of mistakes by successive governments and its 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 have 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 ombudsman concluded that victims losses were directly attributable to a decade of serial administration by government departments and their agencies.
The state has accepted responsibility and accepts how much people lost, but the recommendations of the Parliamentary Ombudsman 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 had the maladministration not occurred in 2010, the government accepted the Ombudsman's findings in full. The government accepted that victims losses amounted to over £4 billion, while 37,000 with profits annuitants were 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 compensation and the methodology used to distribute it. And while I have to say that I'm personally not disappointed to welcome the members for Saint Ives and Mendip Hills 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 others, have been affected by this. I 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, their life pension savings were decimated by government malfeasance. Malfeasance. According to the Equitable Members Action Group, as of 2025, over £170 million of compensation money already allocated and forecast to be paid to victims is set to be kept by the Treasury and not reach the people affected.
The government should release this money in full and immediately to affected policyholders, as it was always intended to be. In addition, we believe that the government should listen to the concerns of those affected by the collapse of Equitable Life and establish an independent Commissioner to assess the claims of individuals. This would ensure that the victims of the Equitable Life scandal, like my constituents, are finally treated fairly and properly compensated. Thank you, Mr.
Fairness.
Approximately 2000 people in every single constituency across the country has lost pension savings because of mistakes by successive governments and its 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 have 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 ombudsman concluded that victims losses were directly attributable to a decade of serial administration by government departments and their agencies.
The state has accepted responsibility and accepts how much people lost, but the recommendations of the Parliamentary Ombudsman 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 had the maladministration not occurred in 2010, the government accepted the Ombudsman's findings in full. The government accepted that victims losses amounted to over £4 billion, while 37,000 with profits annuitants were 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 compensation and the methodology used to distribute it. And while I have to say that I'm personally not disappointed to welcome the members for Saint Ives and Mendip Hills 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 others, have been affected by this. I 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, their life pension savings were decimated by government malfeasance. Malfeasance. According to the Equitable Members Action Group, as of 2025, over £170 million of compensation money already allocated and forecast to be paid to victims is set to be kept by the Treasury and not reach the people affected.
The government should release this money in full and immediately to affected policyholders, as it was always intended to be. In addition, we believe that the government should listen to the concerns of those affected by the collapse of Equitable Life and establish an independent Commissioner to assess the claims of individuals. This would ensure that the victims of the Equitable Life scandal, like my constituents, are finally treated fairly and properly compensated. Thank you, Mr.
Fairness.
14:39
14:39
Speaker 14
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Speaker 14
Well, thank you very much indeed. Mr. Fairness, it's a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. We know, don't we, miss fairness, that issues of injustice can take an awfully long time to reach resolution in Parliament. And as such, it is important that people who have or feel that they have suffered injustice at the hands of the state should have worthy champions who have the doggedness and the stamina to continue to make the case. So I am delighted to congratulate the member for Leeds North East for bringing this motion to us today. As has been noted, this issue goes back through this Labour government, previous conservative governments, the coalition governments to the Brown government all the way back through Blair.
So let's just take a moment to think about the individuals affected by this who have already been waiting two decades and more for what they would see is a full resolution. And as a member of Parliament myself, for periods of that time, I have had a sense that this is unfinished business. I was interested to listen to some of the comments that were made. One of the issues that was raised, most notably by the member for Brentford and Isleworth, but also my hon. Friend the member for Christchurch was on the issue of regulation and the role of regulators in the the kind of different perspectives of remedies on that.
I think I'm closer to the one suggested by my my colleague, the honourable member for Brentford. I made the point that regulators are being hollowed out. I would say on average they've got greater scope, greater funding, more people. It is the issue of their focus, but more importantly, that we in this House or the structures to hold regulators to account are insufficient. There is no annual review of each regulator that's performed to an effective state that you would normally do in lots of other areas. So I think what the honourable member, I would encourage the two honourable members to talk to improve our system of regulating the regulators.
Yes.
So let's just take a moment to think about the individuals affected by this who have already been waiting two decades and more for what they would see is a full resolution. And as a member of Parliament myself, for periods of that time, I have had a sense that this is unfinished business. I was interested to listen to some of the comments that were made. One of the issues that was raised, most notably by the member for Brentford and Isleworth, but also my hon. Friend the member for Christchurch was on the issue of regulation and the role of regulators in the the kind of different perspectives of remedies on that.
I think I'm closer to the one suggested by my my colleague, the honourable member for Brentford. I made the point that regulators are being hollowed out. I would say on average they've got greater scope, greater funding, more people. It is the issue of their focus, but more importantly, that we in this House or the structures to hold regulators to account are insufficient. There is no annual review of each regulator that's performed to an effective state that you would normally do in lots of other areas. So I think what the honourable member, I would encourage the two honourable members to talk to improve our system of regulating the regulators.
Yes.
14:42
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I respect the honourable member's views, but powers, adequate powers and adequate resources go together. And too often since I've been in this place, I've heard again and again that that regulators would have liked to have done more and simply don't have the capacity. They don't have the staff in place. But that's my view.
14:42
Speaker 14
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Speaker 14
I'm grateful and I don't want to I don't want to go too far off the topic because I'm a bit of a nerd on regulating regulators. So we'll find a time, perhaps later to talk about that offline. So I think that was an important, important point. And also the point that was made by the honourable member for Saint Ives, and I'm glad he didn't put it as a party political point. But it is a relevant point that the Labour Party's position in opposition was that the compensation was not substantial, sufficiently substantial. So what I'd like to do is sort of make three broad points in lead up to questions on each.
To the minister. The first point I'd like to to establish is that making changes to the settlement is not a matter that is set in stone. It is a matter of government choice. And I say that and I want to bring an example which I'm raising solely for the purposes of talking about choice on pensions, not to talk about the decision that was made in this, because a matter of settled choice. This is about mineworkers pensions, because the the the the incoming Labour government made the choice in the mine workers pensions to move the surplus that had been accumulated in that fund, and to pay that to the mineworkers rather than back to the taxpayer, back to the government.
It was the use of public. Otherwise public funds that resulted in a boost to mine workers pensions of about 3,032%. So that was a choice. So I'd just ask the minister to consider that was a choice by the government to boost the pensions that were already being paid, quote unquote, in full. But yet the government has no choice yet on people who have had an 80% decline in their pensions. And I think for some, that might strike as an odd, different set of values about why we're treating one a different to the other. It would be interesting to government ministers thoughts on that.
But generally the point that I'm trying to raise is that this is a matter of choice for for the government. The second point I want to talk about is leads from the quote that was given by the minister's colleague, the Finance Secretary of the Treasury, who in September 2026 on this matter, said, quote, there are no plans to reopen any decisions relating to the payment scheme or or review. Now, that's an interesting phrase, because part of the conditions that around those decisions are couched in different phrases, different wordings of the phrase that the settlement amount was done in consideration of the position of public finances.
And that was stated at both way back in 2008. But then also when the settlement was announced in 2011 and alluded to again in 20 2016. So I just can the minister confirm that when his colleagues said there are no plans to reopen any decisions, it is still the case that, considering the state of public finances is a live factor that's encapsulated in that. And the meaning of that fairness is that it should there be a change in in the public finances, then there would be scope for the government to change its mind. I think that's an important point.
I want to lay out a false hope. But this the amount that was settled was specifically in consideration. The public finances at the time. Times now be better or maybe worse, but they're certainly different times.
To the minister. The first point I'd like to to establish is that making changes to the settlement is not a matter that is set in stone. It is a matter of government choice. And I say that and I want to bring an example which I'm raising solely for the purposes of talking about choice on pensions, not to talk about the decision that was made in this, because a matter of settled choice. This is about mineworkers pensions, because the the the the incoming Labour government made the choice in the mine workers pensions to move the surplus that had been accumulated in that fund, and to pay that to the mineworkers rather than back to the taxpayer, back to the government.
It was the use of public. Otherwise public funds that resulted in a boost to mine workers pensions of about 3,032%. So that was a choice. So I'd just ask the minister to consider that was a choice by the government to boost the pensions that were already being paid, quote unquote, in full. But yet the government has no choice yet on people who have had an 80% decline in their pensions. And I think for some, that might strike as an odd, different set of values about why we're treating one a different to the other. It would be interesting to government ministers thoughts on that.
But generally the point that I'm trying to raise is that this is a matter of choice for for the government. The second point I want to talk about is leads from the quote that was given by the minister's colleague, the Finance Secretary of the Treasury, who in September 2026 on this matter, said, quote, there are no plans to reopen any decisions relating to the payment scheme or or review. Now, that's an interesting phrase, because part of the conditions that around those decisions are couched in different phrases, different wordings of the phrase that the settlement amount was done in consideration of the position of public finances.
And that was stated at both way back in 2008. But then also when the settlement was announced in 2011 and alluded to again in 20 2016. So I just can the minister confirm that when his colleagues said there are no plans to reopen any decisions, it is still the case that, considering the state of public finances is a live factor that's encapsulated in that. And the meaning of that fairness is that it should there be a change in in the public finances, then there would be scope for the government to change its mind. I think that's an important point.
I want to lay out a false hope. But this the amount that was settled was specifically in consideration. The public finances at the time. Times now be better or maybe worse, but they're certainly different times.
14:46
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
The public finances at the time. Times now be better or maybe worse, but they're certainly different times. And so it's important that when we hear from the minister or read the response from the minister of the ministerial colleague, there are no plans to reopen any decision that it is clear that they are still open to consideration if the public finances change. And the final point really comes to a point that the honourable member I want to return to the honourable member for Leeds North that he said in his excellent speech, which is about unspent or unallocated unspent monies.
So what the honourable member for Leeds North East said was that if funds have been allocated but are not needed to meet the liabilities for which they were intended, then they should be used to compensate people who have still not received full redress. So this really is a question about what those excess funds would do or unspent funds would do. Part of it is the reserve, part of it is unallocated monies. I think it would be very helpful in the big scheme of things, perhaps not the. It would be very helpful if the Minister could just confirm that it is the intention that those monies in that envelope will be reallocated to policy holders, rather than being swept back into general taxpayers money?
Because I think the last thing we want to have from today's debate is the minister being unclear, to Equitable Life policyholders who have lost 80% of their in some cases, 80% of their pensions already, that if there are monies left in the envelope that was set at a particular time, at a level because of the state of public finances, that any surplus monies that are in that will be squirreled away given to the government again. So I'd be very grateful if Minister could answer those three questions.
Thank you, Miss Vanessa.
So what the honourable member for Leeds North East said was that if funds have been allocated but are not needed to meet the liabilities for which they were intended, then they should be used to compensate people who have still not received full redress. So this really is a question about what those excess funds would do or unspent funds would do. Part of it is the reserve, part of it is unallocated monies. I think it would be very helpful in the big scheme of things, perhaps not the. It would be very helpful if the Minister could just confirm that it is the intention that those monies in that envelope will be reallocated to policy holders, rather than being swept back into general taxpayers money?
Because I think the last thing we want to have from today's debate is the minister being unclear, to Equitable Life policyholders who have lost 80% of their in some cases, 80% of their pensions already, that if there are monies left in the envelope that was set at a particular time, at a level because of the state of public finances, that any surplus monies that are in that will be squirreled away given to the government again. So I'd be very grateful if Minister could answer those three questions.
Thank you, Miss Vanessa.
14:48
14:48
14:48
Speaker 15
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Speaker 15
Very much, Miss Furness. It's always a privilege to respond to a debate under your chairmanship. Let me start by thanking the honourable member for Leeds North East for opening today. He was referred to as a limpet earlier, but I think he deserves other. He's been more proactive than that in his campaigning on this issue over the years. It's an important issue just to him, and it's been an important issue to lots of other honourable members. And I should echo the point he made at the beginning about the honourable member for Goole and Pocklington, who's not here but has been a has been focused on these issues over a very, very long period of time.
They've been campaigning on it with tireless energy and kept the issue in the spotlight. Just reflecting on some of the points that several honourable members have made. I think the truth is that it's not possible to restore trust entirely, certainly in the firm that was involved in this, if you are the people affected, but also probably in the regulators. But hopefully some of their campaigning has restored trust in local representation and the campaigning energy of those local representatives. Now, obviously, the issue is even more important to the thousands of equitable life savers who were affected.
And I think the point well made by the honourable member for Christchurch and others about the human effect of that, is one I'm sure everybody around this room has at the front of their mind of those who were affected, that included my grandfather, and I've obviously met lots of other members as constituents who were members of the mutual before it disappeared. And I've also met with the action group that many members have met. So I think we've all heard the the kinds of human impacts that honourable members have set out well, today, just on the big picture, I think it's also worth several honourable members, including the honourable member for Leeds North East, but also the member for Bracknell talked about the importance about people having trust in pensions, and this is obviously a particular part of the pension system, but that does apply to the entire pension system.
That's something I take very seriously indeed, is Pensions Minister. I was up in Liverpool at the pensions UK conference last week. Talking exactly in those terms about our task is to make sure that what is, if we're honest today, to low trust in pensions. That's true, by the way, in the state pension and in the private pension space. It is our job to rebuild that when it comes to pensions. That does include what I see sometimes as some parts of pension scams being on the rise. And the honourable member for Brentford and Isleworth raised that.
Obviously these days the Financial services compensation scheme does exist in a way that it didn't in the period that we are talking about , when we're talking about pensions that operate within the contract based part of the pensions system, that is a that is a big change. And remember, that's a compensation paid not by taxpayers, but by the financial services industry themselves. That's the answer to the honourable member for Christchurch is very specific question on what happens when the regulators or more importantly, the the providers fail. And the answer is there is a compensation scheme, but we are here because there was not a compensation scheme in place and it has caps on it.
Obviously, in terms of the compensation that is due. Let me make some progress on the specifics of this case. Honourable members will be aware this is a topic that has been well documented and explored over the years. The honourable member for Saint Ives set out his the role of the sabbatical for him in the period that that has taken place, the Equitable Life Payment Scheme was established to make payments to eligible policyholders, specifically where maladministration had been found and which contributed to some savers suffering relative loss totalling £4.1 billion. Relative loss was defined as the difference between the value of policyholders funds with Equitable Life , and what they would have received if they had made a comparable investment elsewhere.
I'm merely pointing out that that is not a cash loss. That is about a relative loss relative to a counterfactual of having invested in a different, similar product. This approach followed the 2008 Parliamentary Ombudsman's report into the collapse, and was the foundation of the payment scheme. In 2010, the government of the day accepted the Ombudsman's findings and chose to allocate in the region of 1.5 billion. That was the quote from the Chancellor at the time to make tax free payments to LGBT eligible policyholders in respect of the reduced returns they received from their investments.
That government chose what they saw as the correct balance of interests between the interests of the affected policyholders and taxpayers. That's the choice that was made. And now I'm obviously, and we've heard it again today, fully aware that people are dissatisfied with that in the region of £1.5 billion. And they suggest that that issue should be reopened. Now, it is not for me to defend the decisions made by the then Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. To be fair to the honourable lady from Richmond Park, she came closest to doing so today. But other colleagues chose not you, but you chose to defend the decisions of that government to some degree, but others obviously did not.
And the balance of opinion in this room is that that then government made a mistake in the size of the compensation that was allocated. As I say, it's not for me to make their case, but were they here to do so, they would say that decisions need to be fair to taxpayers as well as policyholders, and they would point out that there is a wide range of people responsible for the disaster that we saw in equatorial life, including those, by the way, that were responsible for the firm through that period in the 1990s when when very reprehensible actions took place.
Of course, the minister.
They've been campaigning on it with tireless energy and kept the issue in the spotlight. Just reflecting on some of the points that several honourable members have made. I think the truth is that it's not possible to restore trust entirely, certainly in the firm that was involved in this, if you are the people affected, but also probably in the regulators. But hopefully some of their campaigning has restored trust in local representation and the campaigning energy of those local representatives. Now, obviously, the issue is even more important to the thousands of equitable life savers who were affected.
And I think the point well made by the honourable member for Christchurch and others about the human effect of that, is one I'm sure everybody around this room has at the front of their mind of those who were affected, that included my grandfather, and I've obviously met lots of other members as constituents who were members of the mutual before it disappeared. And I've also met with the action group that many members have met. So I think we've all heard the the kinds of human impacts that honourable members have set out well, today, just on the big picture, I think it's also worth several honourable members, including the honourable member for Leeds North East, but also the member for Bracknell talked about the importance about people having trust in pensions, and this is obviously a particular part of the pension system, but that does apply to the entire pension system.
That's something I take very seriously indeed, is Pensions Minister. I was up in Liverpool at the pensions UK conference last week. Talking exactly in those terms about our task is to make sure that what is, if we're honest today, to low trust in pensions. That's true, by the way, in the state pension and in the private pension space. It is our job to rebuild that when it comes to pensions. That does include what I see sometimes as some parts of pension scams being on the rise. And the honourable member for Brentford and Isleworth raised that.
Obviously these days the Financial services compensation scheme does exist in a way that it didn't in the period that we are talking about , when we're talking about pensions that operate within the contract based part of the pensions system, that is a that is a big change. And remember, that's a compensation paid not by taxpayers, but by the financial services industry themselves. That's the answer to the honourable member for Christchurch is very specific question on what happens when the regulators or more importantly, the the providers fail. And the answer is there is a compensation scheme, but we are here because there was not a compensation scheme in place and it has caps on it.
Obviously, in terms of the compensation that is due. Let me make some progress on the specifics of this case. Honourable members will be aware this is a topic that has been well documented and explored over the years. The honourable member for Saint Ives set out his the role of the sabbatical for him in the period that that has taken place, the Equitable Life Payment Scheme was established to make payments to eligible policyholders, specifically where maladministration had been found and which contributed to some savers suffering relative loss totalling £4.1 billion. Relative loss was defined as the difference between the value of policyholders funds with Equitable Life , and what they would have received if they had made a comparable investment elsewhere.
I'm merely pointing out that that is not a cash loss. That is about a relative loss relative to a counterfactual of having invested in a different, similar product. This approach followed the 2008 Parliamentary Ombudsman's report into the collapse, and was the foundation of the payment scheme. In 2010, the government of the day accepted the Ombudsman's findings and chose to allocate in the region of 1.5 billion. That was the quote from the Chancellor at the time to make tax free payments to LGBT eligible policyholders in respect of the reduced returns they received from their investments.
That government chose what they saw as the correct balance of interests between the interests of the affected policyholders and taxpayers. That's the choice that was made. And now I'm obviously, and we've heard it again today, fully aware that people are dissatisfied with that in the region of £1.5 billion. And they suggest that that issue should be reopened. Now, it is not for me to defend the decisions made by the then Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. To be fair to the honourable lady from Richmond Park, she came closest to doing so today. But other colleagues chose not you, but you chose to defend the decisions of that government to some degree, but others obviously did not.
And the balance of opinion in this room is that that then government made a mistake in the size of the compensation that was allocated. As I say, it's not for me to make their case, but were they here to do so, they would say that decisions need to be fair to taxpayers as well as policyholders, and they would point out that there is a wide range of people responsible for the disaster that we saw in equatorial life, including those, by the way, that were responsible for the firm through that period in the 1990s when when very reprehensible actions took place.
Of course, the minister.
14:53
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Is making the case that the position, when that settlement was made about balance between taxpayers and policyholders was a matter of fault and responsibility. But does he not also recognise that a substantial part of that balance was to do with the state of public finances? And will he confirm that that is still a live consideration in the Treasury that could in future lead to the settlement being opened, reopened?
14:54
Speaker 15
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Speaker 15
Let me come to his last question towards the end of my remarks. But on the first point, he's absolutely right to say that the then government's key consideration when I referenced taxpayers was, is the public finances. That is the point being made. That was the key driver in the decision about how much to allocate by the then government, rather than trying some kind of specific accounting for the impact of the maladministration per se them. Now then, ministers also noticed the consistency of their decision with the Ombudsman's report. We have discussed a bit of that today and they and that Ombudsman subsequently wrote to the all party parliamentary group on this issue, which I think several members have in this room have been part of confirming that the government's decision cannot be said to be incompatible with her report.
As honourable members know, following representations from groups such as the Equitable Members Action Group, the government prioritised those acknowledged by all parties to be the most vulnerable. The. With profit annuitants, they received 100% of their losses. This meant that of the 1.5 billion £725 million was allocated to, with profit annuitants to be paid annually over the duration of the annuity. And that continues to this day. And that included the £100 million contingency fund. That's the answer to the question raised by the honourable member for Strangford to ensure that the provision for the Annuitants, should they live longer than expected, was there.
And that's obviously a standard actuarial process. That's what sits behind the regulation of the insurance sector when they are selling annuities. The remaining 775 million was allocated to be paid as lump sums to the with to with profit non annuitants other holding other products. The. As for the details of how much has been spent, I can. I can provide answers to the question raised by several honourable members. As of the 30th of September 2026, the total value of payments made by the scheme was almost. It's just short of. But almost exactly £1.4 billion. So an increase on the previous figure that the honourable member quoted.
Now, I note the references in this debate to the pre 92 with profit annuity holders, the. The coalition government excluded them from the scheme, not because they had not suffered real impacts from the collapse of Equitable Life. I think the then government recognised that effect. It was because their purchase of those annuities, which is the point at which you lock into the decision in the case of an annuity, was outside the period of maladministration. And so the government would have struggled to find a locus to make a payment in the terms of a scheme, because there was no maladministration to tie that payment to.
Again, it's not for me to defend that government, but were they here? That is how they would explain the decision was taken, and that is why the 2013 decision that was referenced by the then government to provide separate, tax free, ex gratia payments was the way that the previous government chose to proceed. Now, chair chair, the scheme has now been fully wound down. It was closed in 2016 by a previous conservative government that is now over a full decade ago. Now, I suspect honourable members know I cannot give all honourable members, or indeed all the impressive campaigners on this issue, the answers they would like a straight more compensation.
I suspect honourable members know that is the case. I do want to give them the next best thing, and I think the next best thing is a straight answer. And this is the direct answer to the opposition spokespersons question, which is there are no plans to reopen the previous policy decisions taken by the previous government. They made decisions given the public finances at the time. Those were debated by the Parliament that we are all elected. Some members were elected to at the time, but the rest of us respect the decisions of that House. The only part of the payment scheme in operation is the annual payments made to eligible annuitants.
The scheme is on track to distribute the remainder of the funds allocated as planned. On that basis, the right thing for this government to do is to ensure that the ongoing payments to those eligible with profits annuity holders, the group, recognise, I think, by all of us, to be the most vulnerable, continue to be made. And chair, I want to finish today by assuring them that the funding for those payments remains protected and to once again thank all the honourable members who have spoken in this debate.
Thank you.
As honourable members know, following representations from groups such as the Equitable Members Action Group, the government prioritised those acknowledged by all parties to be the most vulnerable. The. With profit annuitants, they received 100% of their losses. This meant that of the 1.5 billion £725 million was allocated to, with profit annuitants to be paid annually over the duration of the annuity. And that continues to this day. And that included the £100 million contingency fund. That's the answer to the question raised by the honourable member for Strangford to ensure that the provision for the Annuitants, should they live longer than expected, was there.
And that's obviously a standard actuarial process. That's what sits behind the regulation of the insurance sector when they are selling annuities. The remaining 775 million was allocated to be paid as lump sums to the with to with profit non annuitants other holding other products. The. As for the details of how much has been spent, I can. I can provide answers to the question raised by several honourable members. As of the 30th of September 2026, the total value of payments made by the scheme was almost. It's just short of. But almost exactly £1.4 billion. So an increase on the previous figure that the honourable member quoted.
Now, I note the references in this debate to the pre 92 with profit annuity holders, the. The coalition government excluded them from the scheme, not because they had not suffered real impacts from the collapse of Equitable Life. I think the then government recognised that effect. It was because their purchase of those annuities, which is the point at which you lock into the decision in the case of an annuity, was outside the period of maladministration. And so the government would have struggled to find a locus to make a payment in the terms of a scheme, because there was no maladministration to tie that payment to.
Again, it's not for me to defend that government, but were they here? That is how they would explain the decision was taken, and that is why the 2013 decision that was referenced by the then government to provide separate, tax free, ex gratia payments was the way that the previous government chose to proceed. Now, chair chair, the scheme has now been fully wound down. It was closed in 2016 by a previous conservative government that is now over a full decade ago. Now, I suspect honourable members know I cannot give all honourable members, or indeed all the impressive campaigners on this issue, the answers they would like a straight more compensation.
I suspect honourable members know that is the case. I do want to give them the next best thing, and I think the next best thing is a straight answer. And this is the direct answer to the opposition spokespersons question, which is there are no plans to reopen the previous policy decisions taken by the previous government. They made decisions given the public finances at the time. Those were debated by the Parliament that we are all elected. Some members were elected to at the time, but the rest of us respect the decisions of that House. The only part of the payment scheme in operation is the annual payments made to eligible annuitants.
The scheme is on track to distribute the remainder of the funds allocated as planned. On that basis, the right thing for this government to do is to ensure that the ongoing payments to those eligible with profits annuity holders, the group, recognise, I think, by all of us, to be the most vulnerable, continue to be made. And chair, I want to finish today by assuring them that the funding for those payments remains protected and to once again thank all the honourable members who have spoken in this debate.
Thank you.
14:58
14:58
14:58
Speaker 8
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Speaker 8
Much, Miss Furness. I just want to thank all honourable and right honourable members who took part in the debate today. The member for Strangford always direct and forthright. My colleague and friend from Brentford and Isleworth, the members for Saint Ives and Christchurch. Excellent contributions. The winding up from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Richmond Park, the shadow minister for North Bedfordshire, and of course, the minister himself. I just leave members with one thought. I first tabled a debate in June of 20 of 2009. That was the first debate in this very room. But other members have been debating this for far longer indeed, and I'd leave members with this thought that compensation for equitable life policyholders is not something that is.
It's unfortunately not been fully fulfilled. My view and the view of many at the time is that it's a moral obligation. It's a moral obligation that has never been fulfilled. And I think it's tragic that there is no question of reopening the scheme or using the statistics, the figures of monies that are left, which the minister has just, I think, completely contradicted that there is no such money left. I haven't had a sabbatical like two colleagues, and I and many others have continued to campaign on this and will continue until that compensation is paid in full, however unlikely that may be.
But I thank everybody for their part in today's debate, and I thank Emag for all their work to.
It's unfortunately not been fully fulfilled. My view and the view of many at the time is that it's a moral obligation. It's a moral obligation that has never been fulfilled. And I think it's tragic that there is no question of reopening the scheme or using the statistics, the figures of monies that are left, which the minister has just, I think, completely contradicted that there is no such money left. I haven't had a sabbatical like two colleagues, and I and many others have continued to campaign on this and will continue until that compensation is paid in full, however unlikely that may be.
But I thank everybody for their part in today's debate, and I thank Emag for all their work to.
15:00
15:10
15:10
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Thank you very much, Mrs. Hobhouse. It's a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I beg to move that this house has considered the legacy of the Jarrow Crusade. On the 90th anniversary. The Jarrow Crusade is now rightly remembered as a pivotal moment in UK history, not just in my brilliant constituency of Jarrow and Gateshead East, but across the UK. Jarrow is a town with a proud history of people organizing together to stand up to injustice and demand something better, one which refuses to accept that poverty, exploitation and inequality are simply the natural order of things.
On the 5th of October 1936, 200 unemployed men left Jarrow to begin a near 300 mile journey to London. Their petition represented the hopes of a community devastated by industrial decline and mass unemployment. They demonstrated the strength, solidarity and determination of the people of Jarrow. 90 years later, their story is still relevant and needs to be heard. Standing with the descendants in front of number ten this week with the original petition box that the marchers carried all that way was extremely moving. The Prime Minister bringing the descendants into number ten for a cup of tea and a discussion, listening to their memories and their history helped to right the historic wrong and gave the families the welcome that the marchers should have received back in 1936.
And I want to place on record my thanks to the Prime Minister and his team for the time they spent with us all, and for helping to host the events this month. Listening to the memories and stories of those crusaders from their children has been moving and inspiring. It's a real honour to lead this debate today. Our history must be remembered and celebrated for the benefit of a new generation, but it must also be used to move forward, to learn from our history and to build a better world. Because whilst some progress has been made, there is still a lot to do.
Those marchers in 1936 were demanding the right to work, the dignity of providing for their families, and the opportunity to build a future for their community. They were fighting against health, inequality, poverty and a lack of housing. And 90 years later, many of those same challenges still remain. In my constituency today, 39% of children still live in food poverty. Too many people are still in insecure work, and the North East is still being left behind. Across South Tyneside, the number of young people aged 18 to 21 claiming unemployment benefits is 61% higher than the national average.
Local weekly earnings remain below the national average. Almost a century on from the March, generations are still growing up in and around Jarrow, unable to find suitable work and with high levels of inequality and poverty. Since becoming Jarrow MP in 2019, I've had to confront what those circumstances mean for the people that I represent. And we know all too well the lasting consequences that the loss of industry can have on a community. After the closure of the shipyards, skilled workers were left without jobs. Families face poverty and uncertainty, and the businesses and communities that depended on the shipyards suffered , too.
The loss of industry was not confined to the factory gates. It reached into people's homes, affected children's prospects, undermined the confidence of an entire town and shifted our identity. And we see similar challenges playing out now. So whilst these commemorative events and today's debate are about remembering those who bravely marched to demand better, they are also about looking to the future and embracing the potential of the North East, because the challenges that faced working class communities then continue to face them now. We must appreciate the progress we have made and recognise what remains to be done.
Thanks to this Labour government, good steps have already been taken to deliver for our community and I want to welcome that. Our landmark Employment Rights Act means that workers can feel more secure, valued and stable, with stronger rights to dignified, unionised work. That pays well because access to decent work that pays fairly and provides security is intrinsic to ensuring that no community like ours is left behind. Similarly, thanks to the Pride in Place programme, I have secured £20 million for our community. Priorities for this investment include creating opportunities for young people, rebuilding our town centre and strengthening community organisations, strengthening community organisations matter because investment alone doesn't change communities, giving communities a voice in what that change looks like does.
For too many families in Jarrow, being in work does not provide the financial security that they deserve. Parents are working hard, but their wages are still insufficient to provide the opportunities that they want for their children. And too many young people are struggling to find secure, well-paid employment that would allow them to build a future in the communities where they grew up. These are the same fundamental challenges that the Jarrow Crusaders marched to confront 90 years ago, and they are why we cannot afford to be complacent about the progress that we've made. So whilst we can and should celebrate the progress this government has made and the very welcome new steps of our Prime Minister, it is clear that we still need more investment in the North East to create well-paid and secure jobs and give local people more of a say in decisions that affect their lives.
That includes bringing shipbuilding back to the Tyne, with more jobs, more apprenticeships and more investment. We must build on the industrial heritage of the North East a history of skilled, hard working people, a history that continues to define my constituency to this day and will do long into the future. Let me put on record how pleased I was to hear the Chancellor mention Jarrow and the Crusade in one of his speeches, and how pleased I am that he met with apprentices from Ballina. So can I ask, will the Minister commit to pushing for more shipbuilding and other investment in the North East and to tackling youth unemployment and poverty with good, highly skilled, well paid jobs and education opportunities for our communities?
And I'd also like to ask the minister what further steps the government is taking to ensure that communities like Jarrow are at the heart of its plans for industrial growth, and that the jobs and opportunities created by that investment benefit local people? As we mark 90 years since a crusade. Will the Minister join me in recognizing not only the extraordinary determination of those who marched then, but the importance of continuing the fight for decent jobs, dignity at work and opportunities for working class communities today. It has been wonderful to bring that hope. The Prime Minister has been speaking about back to the north and the North East in particular, and to share our history with the new generation.
The greatest lesson of the Jarrow Crusade is what ordinary people can achieve when they organise, work together and stand up for one another. By the centenary in 2036, I want us to be able to celebrate real progress in tackling poverty and creating opportunities for every child in Jarrow, and I hope the Minister joins me in that commitment. Thank you very much. Thank you.
On the 5th of October 1936, 200 unemployed men left Jarrow to begin a near 300 mile journey to London. Their petition represented the hopes of a community devastated by industrial decline and mass unemployment. They demonstrated the strength, solidarity and determination of the people of Jarrow. 90 years later, their story is still relevant and needs to be heard. Standing with the descendants in front of number ten this week with the original petition box that the marchers carried all that way was extremely moving. The Prime Minister bringing the descendants into number ten for a cup of tea and a discussion, listening to their memories and their history helped to right the historic wrong and gave the families the welcome that the marchers should have received back in 1936.
And I want to place on record my thanks to the Prime Minister and his team for the time they spent with us all, and for helping to host the events this month. Listening to the memories and stories of those crusaders from their children has been moving and inspiring. It's a real honour to lead this debate today. Our history must be remembered and celebrated for the benefit of a new generation, but it must also be used to move forward, to learn from our history and to build a better world. Because whilst some progress has been made, there is still a lot to do.
Those marchers in 1936 were demanding the right to work, the dignity of providing for their families, and the opportunity to build a future for their community. They were fighting against health, inequality, poverty and a lack of housing. And 90 years later, many of those same challenges still remain. In my constituency today, 39% of children still live in food poverty. Too many people are still in insecure work, and the North East is still being left behind. Across South Tyneside, the number of young people aged 18 to 21 claiming unemployment benefits is 61% higher than the national average.
Local weekly earnings remain below the national average. Almost a century on from the March, generations are still growing up in and around Jarrow, unable to find suitable work and with high levels of inequality and poverty. Since becoming Jarrow MP in 2019, I've had to confront what those circumstances mean for the people that I represent. And we know all too well the lasting consequences that the loss of industry can have on a community. After the closure of the shipyards, skilled workers were left without jobs. Families face poverty and uncertainty, and the businesses and communities that depended on the shipyards suffered , too.
The loss of industry was not confined to the factory gates. It reached into people's homes, affected children's prospects, undermined the confidence of an entire town and shifted our identity. And we see similar challenges playing out now. So whilst these commemorative events and today's debate are about remembering those who bravely marched to demand better, they are also about looking to the future and embracing the potential of the North East, because the challenges that faced working class communities then continue to face them now. We must appreciate the progress we have made and recognise what remains to be done.
Thanks to this Labour government, good steps have already been taken to deliver for our community and I want to welcome that. Our landmark Employment Rights Act means that workers can feel more secure, valued and stable, with stronger rights to dignified, unionised work. That pays well because access to decent work that pays fairly and provides security is intrinsic to ensuring that no community like ours is left behind. Similarly, thanks to the Pride in Place programme, I have secured £20 million for our community. Priorities for this investment include creating opportunities for young people, rebuilding our town centre and strengthening community organisations, strengthening community organisations matter because investment alone doesn't change communities, giving communities a voice in what that change looks like does.
For too many families in Jarrow, being in work does not provide the financial security that they deserve. Parents are working hard, but their wages are still insufficient to provide the opportunities that they want for their children. And too many young people are struggling to find secure, well-paid employment that would allow them to build a future in the communities where they grew up. These are the same fundamental challenges that the Jarrow Crusaders marched to confront 90 years ago, and they are why we cannot afford to be complacent about the progress that we've made. So whilst we can and should celebrate the progress this government has made and the very welcome new steps of our Prime Minister, it is clear that we still need more investment in the North East to create well-paid and secure jobs and give local people more of a say in decisions that affect their lives.
That includes bringing shipbuilding back to the Tyne, with more jobs, more apprenticeships and more investment. We must build on the industrial heritage of the North East a history of skilled, hard working people, a history that continues to define my constituency to this day and will do long into the future. Let me put on record how pleased I was to hear the Chancellor mention Jarrow and the Crusade in one of his speeches, and how pleased I am that he met with apprentices from Ballina. So can I ask, will the Minister commit to pushing for more shipbuilding and other investment in the North East and to tackling youth unemployment and poverty with good, highly skilled, well paid jobs and education opportunities for our communities?
And I'd also like to ask the minister what further steps the government is taking to ensure that communities like Jarrow are at the heart of its plans for industrial growth, and that the jobs and opportunities created by that investment benefit local people? As we mark 90 years since a crusade. Will the Minister join me in recognizing not only the extraordinary determination of those who marched then, but the importance of continuing the fight for decent jobs, dignity at work and opportunities for working class communities today. It has been wonderful to bring that hope. The Prime Minister has been speaking about back to the north and the North East in particular, and to share our history with the new generation.
The greatest lesson of the Jarrow Crusade is what ordinary people can achieve when they organise, work together and stand up for one another. By the centenary in 2036, I want us to be able to celebrate real progress in tackling poverty and creating opportunities for every child in Jarrow, and I hope the Minister joins me in that commitment. Thank you very much. Thank you.
15:18
15:18
Speaker 14
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Speaker 14
As always, a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. And can I thank the Honourable Lady for Jarrow and Gateshead East for setting the scene incredibly well. And I know it's no secret I love history, but I love the history of social politics as well. And this is a great example, I believe, of that very, very key issue of social politics. The nature of my life. And I suspect the life of most of us here is to look out for those that are less well off. Our job is to to chase the bread and butter issues, which has made particular privilege and honor as an MP for Strangford to be able to do.
And for me, reading this story, as I have in history over the years, I'm really pleased that the honourable Lady has brought it forward, because it's not just a significant historical moment for her constituency, it's one that holds immense importance for workers across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and for us in Northern Ireland. And I will mention this later on in my speech, where the ship workers and Harland and Wolff, for instance, they were of a similar mind and took similar protests as as a as a man from Jarrow did as well.
So I'm pleased , very pleased to see the Minister in his place. I've absolutely no doubt that we're going to get an encouraging response from the Minister. I look to him to respond to our request today. Also very pleased to see the Shadow Minister in his place and and also the Lib Dem spokesperson as well. It's a incredibly encouraging, Madam Speaker, to hear that 90 years after the crusade to London, their descendants were invited into Downing Street. I think that's a real privilege. That's acknowledgement. 90 years later of the significance of their work, those 200 men some 300 years ago.
And I'd also, I think, shows the significance of that, of the work that they were recognised centrally here in government by our own Prime Minister, I think, endorses that campaign of many years ago this was offered many, perhaps, maybe a sense of closure for those whose descendants have passed on. That's the difficulties their families had faced were finally formally acknowledged. The. The determination of those formidable men who marched almost 300 miles to make their case for employment is honorable, remembering, of course, they didn't take the train. They didn't take a vehicle, and they didn't take a horse and carriage.
They walked for 300 miles because of the campaign that they believed in. And for me, who loves history, I just love the idea that people think so much of what the campaign was, that they did just that, although they may have returned, and they probably did in a way, from London feeling dejected because they hadn't achieved their goal. But what did they achieve? And that, I think, Madam Chair, is the point I want to make. They achieved the establishment of some social reforms. They achieved the right to to have work. They were the people, Madam Chair.
They were the people who were the first, perhaps to see the NHS and and welfare system being introduced as it was later by the Labour government. But those were the those were the key social issues that they were chasing away back at that time. So they may have felt dejected some 90 years ago, but the. The Jarrow Crusade can claim that their work introduced some of them. Social reforms that are just referred to to better housing. It isn't just the right to better working conditions. It isn't just the right to secure work, shipbuilding. And I want to refer to that.
Madam chair is an industrial. Northern Ireland shares with the north east of England. Both have experienced the consequences of their industrial decline. And when the men were marching some 90 years ago, those in Belfast were doing something similar, maybe not as far as 300 miles, but they were out in protest in support of the Jarrow ma'am. Both have experienced the consequences of industrial decline, with both communities as well striking or taking action over job losses and increasing poverty. Poverty was rife. Poverty in Jarrow was rife as it was in Belfast. It was in other parts of the United Kingdom as well.
However, we must never, never, ever be tempted to write off shipbuilding and engineering as industries of the past. And with the recent investment in defence, there is an opportunity here to rebuild industry in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and to support job creation. The ministers in this place and the Minister will undoubtedly tell us shortly, in response to our requests, the progress that government is making. I can see that progress, Madam Chair, in Harland and Wolff in Belfast, I can see the progress of the contracts that government are handing out to ensure that our Harland and Wolff in Belfast can recruit again, not recruit like it was when the 2020 5000 workers, but recruit 1000 or 2000 and establish themselves in the forefront of modern shipbuilding.
And that's good news for Northern Ireland. It's good news for the shipyard in Belfast, and it's good news for my constituents in Strangford, who are only 15, 20 minutes away from possible employment today. I want to make a plea today to many young people across the United Kingdom feel the same as a man who took part in the jogger said that their efforts are being ignored and this is a. I always try to encourage. We all try to encourage as to encourage our our constituents and especially our young people to apply for the jobs. But I know some of the young people.
And they say to me, you know, I've applied for application after application after application, and I haven't even got a, a letter of response from, from the employers. So many despair. So I'm really encouraged by the Prime Minister in relation to his commitment to trying to help the young people in particular. And the Prime Minister has made he said the right things, but I suppose the right things, Madam Chair, really only means something whenever them right things, right words become the reality. So I'm looking forward to to ensuring that the Prime Minister himself, and I quote his words as described, the fact that some young people today are concerned about the economic catastrophe and a moral failure, and that has to be righted.
And the Prime Minister and government, I believe, has has indicated that must be. I tell one quick story, Madam Chair, and that's about my son. My youngest son. He's a young man, married with two children now. But I remember when he first applied for a job and he said to me, he says, dad, I, I think he'd made something like 70 applications, and unfortunately, not one of them applications were successful and he hadn't got one reply to all, all 70 applications, which was more disparaging. I mean, I always think of somebody writes a letter, you may not agree with him, but for goodness sake, write back and tell him that, you know.
So it was disappointing, but a job come up as a part time job . And it was only four hours. And this was when he was just 18, 19, 20. And he says, what should I do? He says, you take the job and tell you what makes you you're 15 minutes early and stay 15, 15 minutes later. And he did. And then the job was eight hours. 16 hours. It was 24 hours. It was 36 hours. It was 40 hours. It was. And it became the manager, deputy manager of the shop. Then it became the manager of the shop and he became a manager of another shop.
Those are the things that start give our young people encouragement. And that's why I see if I can say this honestly and the Prime Minister's commitment, I see an opportunity to encourage our young people and give them a hope for the future. Not that I'm better than anybody else, but whenever the Prime Minister was coming here and he he made his took an oath. I'd seen him beforehand, and I remember him from 2015, when he was last here, and I shook his hand and honestly, I gave him a hug and I wished him well. And I said to him, Prime Minister, our people need hope.
Our people need encouragement. And that's what I would ask you to do for our people. Now, the Prime Minister's word has been hope and not because I said it to him, but because he appreciated and we both appreciate it, perhaps maybe what the word was to be. So I conclude with this. The concern must be acted upon. I call on government to support growing British industry, invest in job creation to ensure that our young people are supported into employment. The men who marched from Jarrow some 90 years ago, those 200 men should never have had to walk to London to make their demands.
But they did, and they perhaps changed a part of history which encourages all. When we look forward. Similarly, young people today should not need to feel. You have to go to extreme lengths to be heard by this government. I'm hopeful, as the Prime Minister says as well, hopeful of a change, a change that can make a difference, a change that can encourage our young people, lift this nation and make us more united to do better for our people and young people of the future.
Again, the honourable lady. Well done. Thank you.
And for me, reading this story, as I have in history over the years, I'm really pleased that the honourable Lady has brought it forward, because it's not just a significant historical moment for her constituency, it's one that holds immense importance for workers across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and for us in Northern Ireland. And I will mention this later on in my speech, where the ship workers and Harland and Wolff, for instance, they were of a similar mind and took similar protests as as a as a man from Jarrow did as well.
So I'm pleased , very pleased to see the Minister in his place. I've absolutely no doubt that we're going to get an encouraging response from the Minister. I look to him to respond to our request today. Also very pleased to see the Shadow Minister in his place and and also the Lib Dem spokesperson as well. It's a incredibly encouraging, Madam Speaker, to hear that 90 years after the crusade to London, their descendants were invited into Downing Street. I think that's a real privilege. That's acknowledgement. 90 years later of the significance of their work, those 200 men some 300 years ago.
And I'd also, I think, shows the significance of that, of the work that they were recognised centrally here in government by our own Prime Minister, I think, endorses that campaign of many years ago this was offered many, perhaps, maybe a sense of closure for those whose descendants have passed on. That's the difficulties their families had faced were finally formally acknowledged. The. The determination of those formidable men who marched almost 300 miles to make their case for employment is honorable, remembering, of course, they didn't take the train. They didn't take a vehicle, and they didn't take a horse and carriage.
They walked for 300 miles because of the campaign that they believed in. And for me, who loves history, I just love the idea that people think so much of what the campaign was, that they did just that, although they may have returned, and they probably did in a way, from London feeling dejected because they hadn't achieved their goal. But what did they achieve? And that, I think, Madam Chair, is the point I want to make. They achieved the establishment of some social reforms. They achieved the right to to have work. They were the people, Madam Chair.
They were the people who were the first, perhaps to see the NHS and and welfare system being introduced as it was later by the Labour government. But those were the those were the key social issues that they were chasing away back at that time. So they may have felt dejected some 90 years ago, but the. The Jarrow Crusade can claim that their work introduced some of them. Social reforms that are just referred to to better housing. It isn't just the right to better working conditions. It isn't just the right to secure work, shipbuilding. And I want to refer to that.
Madam chair is an industrial. Northern Ireland shares with the north east of England. Both have experienced the consequences of their industrial decline. And when the men were marching some 90 years ago, those in Belfast were doing something similar, maybe not as far as 300 miles, but they were out in protest in support of the Jarrow ma'am. Both have experienced the consequences of industrial decline, with both communities as well striking or taking action over job losses and increasing poverty. Poverty was rife. Poverty in Jarrow was rife as it was in Belfast. It was in other parts of the United Kingdom as well.
However, we must never, never, ever be tempted to write off shipbuilding and engineering as industries of the past. And with the recent investment in defence, there is an opportunity here to rebuild industry in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and to support job creation. The ministers in this place and the Minister will undoubtedly tell us shortly, in response to our requests, the progress that government is making. I can see that progress, Madam Chair, in Harland and Wolff in Belfast, I can see the progress of the contracts that government are handing out to ensure that our Harland and Wolff in Belfast can recruit again, not recruit like it was when the 2020 5000 workers, but recruit 1000 or 2000 and establish themselves in the forefront of modern shipbuilding.
And that's good news for Northern Ireland. It's good news for the shipyard in Belfast, and it's good news for my constituents in Strangford, who are only 15, 20 minutes away from possible employment today. I want to make a plea today to many young people across the United Kingdom feel the same as a man who took part in the jogger said that their efforts are being ignored and this is a. I always try to encourage. We all try to encourage as to encourage our our constituents and especially our young people to apply for the jobs. But I know some of the young people.
And they say to me, you know, I've applied for application after application after application, and I haven't even got a, a letter of response from, from the employers. So many despair. So I'm really encouraged by the Prime Minister in relation to his commitment to trying to help the young people in particular. And the Prime Minister has made he said the right things, but I suppose the right things, Madam Chair, really only means something whenever them right things, right words become the reality. So I'm looking forward to to ensuring that the Prime Minister himself, and I quote his words as described, the fact that some young people today are concerned about the economic catastrophe and a moral failure, and that has to be righted.
And the Prime Minister and government, I believe, has has indicated that must be. I tell one quick story, Madam Chair, and that's about my son. My youngest son. He's a young man, married with two children now. But I remember when he first applied for a job and he said to me, he says, dad, I, I think he'd made something like 70 applications, and unfortunately, not one of them applications were successful and he hadn't got one reply to all, all 70 applications, which was more disparaging. I mean, I always think of somebody writes a letter, you may not agree with him, but for goodness sake, write back and tell him that, you know.
So it was disappointing, but a job come up as a part time job . And it was only four hours. And this was when he was just 18, 19, 20. And he says, what should I do? He says, you take the job and tell you what makes you you're 15 minutes early and stay 15, 15 minutes later. And he did. And then the job was eight hours. 16 hours. It was 24 hours. It was 36 hours. It was 40 hours. It was. And it became the manager, deputy manager of the shop. Then it became the manager of the shop and he became a manager of another shop.
Those are the things that start give our young people encouragement. And that's why I see if I can say this honestly and the Prime Minister's commitment, I see an opportunity to encourage our young people and give them a hope for the future. Not that I'm better than anybody else, but whenever the Prime Minister was coming here and he he made his took an oath. I'd seen him beforehand, and I remember him from 2015, when he was last here, and I shook his hand and honestly, I gave him a hug and I wished him well. And I said to him, Prime Minister, our people need hope.
Our people need encouragement. And that's what I would ask you to do for our people. Now, the Prime Minister's word has been hope and not because I said it to him, but because he appreciated and we both appreciate it, perhaps maybe what the word was to be. So I conclude with this. The concern must be acted upon. I call on government to support growing British industry, invest in job creation to ensure that our young people are supported into employment. The men who marched from Jarrow some 90 years ago, those 200 men should never have had to walk to London to make their demands.
But they did, and they perhaps changed a part of history which encourages all. When we look forward. Similarly, young people today should not need to feel. You have to go to extreme lengths to be heard by this government. I'm hopeful, as the Prime Minister says as well, hopeful of a change, a change that can make a difference, a change that can encourage our young people, lift this nation and make us more united to do better for our people and young people of the future.
Again, the honourable lady. Well done. Thank you.
15:28
15:28
15:28
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Mrs. Hobhouse. A pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. And can I start by congratulating the member for Jarrow and Gateshead East for her work in securing this debate, for keeping this, this event, this, this, the march in both public and political discourse. And the descendants of those marchers have a very strong voice and champion in this place. The Jarrow Crusade stands as a reminder of the devastating impact that chronic poverty and mass unemployment can have as as was experienced in Jarrow during the 1930s, led by David Riley and former MP Ellen Wilkinson, the Jarrow Crusade highlighted many of the challenges which Britain faced in the 1930s a global depression with devastating repercussions for areas of heavy industry such as Jarrow.
Many towns and cities which relied on industry passed through a period of intense industrial depression, with many towns including Jarrow seeing the closure of the shipyards and steelworks, meaning thousands of jobs in critical sectors were lost. Thousands of jobs were lost across Jarrow. 8000 people, many of them skilled workers and only 100 remained in work. And of those, many in unreliable and unstable positions, in October 1936, 200 unemployed men set out from Jarrow on a 26 day journey to London to demand jobs and investment for their town. Following the widespread unemployment after the closure of Palmers shipyard, the march has aimed to arrive in Westminster at the opening of Parliament to present a petition signed by 12,000 residents of Jarrow.
And while there was no immediate support, provided, the publicity that accompanied and followed the crusade helped to generate some renewable renewal for the town and the relationship between large businesses and the government remained under scrutiny. On the 90th anniversary of the Jarrow march, we are confronted with an alarming unemployment crisis, which is not just restricted to a sector and which extends far beyond the town of Jarrow. Within this concerning picture, the trajectory of youth unemployment has been even worse. The jobless rate for 16 to 24 year olds currently stands at an alarming 15%, but this figure in London is 25%, and that's the highest youth unemployment rate in more than a decade, and the first time on record that the UK's youth unemployment rate has exceeded the EU average.
The symbolism of the Jarrow march ending in the country's capital no longer represents. It is is ironic when you consider that it no longer represents the hub of employment opportunities that it did a century ago. While London sends the Treasury a net £43.6 billion a year, unemployment in the capital is on the rise and Londoners are not seeing the same opportunities that were available even just a decade ago. While businesses in London are struggling under increasing financial pressure, average employment costs have increased by 11% since Labour took office, which disproportionately affects sectors which traditionally offer entry level jobs.
Policy decisions taken by this government are making it impossibly hard for businesses to provide young people with their first foot on the career ladder. We must do everything we possibly can to bring young people into work. Let's cut National Insurance contributions. Let's fairly implement the secondary legislation from the Employment Rights Act. Let's invest to create a skilled workforce by properly reforming the apprenticeship levy, which will benefit job seekers and employers alike. The Liberal Democrats recognise the courage and the determination of the marchers, and while we may not have a similar symbolic protest currently, the challenges facing our towns and cities need similar urgent attention.
As the town of Jarrow did 90 years ago. We believe that government needs to listen to communities and take meaningful action to tackle poverty, boost industry and create good, well-paying jobs. Thank you, Mrs. Hobhouse.
Many towns and cities which relied on industry passed through a period of intense industrial depression, with many towns including Jarrow seeing the closure of the shipyards and steelworks, meaning thousands of jobs in critical sectors were lost. Thousands of jobs were lost across Jarrow. 8000 people, many of them skilled workers and only 100 remained in work. And of those, many in unreliable and unstable positions, in October 1936, 200 unemployed men set out from Jarrow on a 26 day journey to London to demand jobs and investment for their town. Following the widespread unemployment after the closure of Palmers shipyard, the march has aimed to arrive in Westminster at the opening of Parliament to present a petition signed by 12,000 residents of Jarrow.
And while there was no immediate support, provided, the publicity that accompanied and followed the crusade helped to generate some renewable renewal for the town and the relationship between large businesses and the government remained under scrutiny. On the 90th anniversary of the Jarrow march, we are confronted with an alarming unemployment crisis, which is not just restricted to a sector and which extends far beyond the town of Jarrow. Within this concerning picture, the trajectory of youth unemployment has been even worse. The jobless rate for 16 to 24 year olds currently stands at an alarming 15%, but this figure in London is 25%, and that's the highest youth unemployment rate in more than a decade, and the first time on record that the UK's youth unemployment rate has exceeded the EU average.
The symbolism of the Jarrow march ending in the country's capital no longer represents. It is is ironic when you consider that it no longer represents the hub of employment opportunities that it did a century ago. While London sends the Treasury a net £43.6 billion a year, unemployment in the capital is on the rise and Londoners are not seeing the same opportunities that were available even just a decade ago. While businesses in London are struggling under increasing financial pressure, average employment costs have increased by 11% since Labour took office, which disproportionately affects sectors which traditionally offer entry level jobs.
Policy decisions taken by this government are making it impossibly hard for businesses to provide young people with their first foot on the career ladder. We must do everything we possibly can to bring young people into work. Let's cut National Insurance contributions. Let's fairly implement the secondary legislation from the Employment Rights Act. Let's invest to create a skilled workforce by properly reforming the apprenticeship levy, which will benefit job seekers and employers alike. The Liberal Democrats recognise the courage and the determination of the marchers, and while we may not have a similar symbolic protest currently, the challenges facing our towns and cities need similar urgent attention.
As the town of Jarrow did 90 years ago. We believe that government needs to listen to communities and take meaningful action to tackle poverty, boost industry and create good, well-paying jobs. Thank you, Mrs. Hobhouse.
15:32
15:32
Speaker 18
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Speaker 18
Thank you, Mrs. Hobhouse, and it's a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, I think, for the first time. There you go. I tried my best between you and I. That's right. Yes. And I also want to congratulate the honourable member for Jarrow and Gateshead East for securing this debate and recognising the 90th anniversary of the Jarrow march. Her predecessor secured an adjournment debate on the 75th anniversary, and I'm pleased that the honourable member went down the route of a Westminster Hall debate so that more colleagues had the opportunity to contribute. And I note that some of the members who contributed on the 75th anniversary of the debate are here today.
And I, of course, referring to the honourable member for Strangford. Well, I said to my team, I said, can you find out if Jim Shannon was there? And they said, he's not that old. I said, I didn't mean the march, I meant the debate. But again, he spoke with eloquence and integrity about the need to get young people back into work. And that's something I recognise with with a 20 year old and a 17 year old, and I confess to being very jealous that the new Prime Minister has had a hug, and I haven't. I must ask the honourable ladies forgiveness, because Jarrow, being over 300 miles from my Bromley and Bickenhill constituency, which of course you all know is not a place I'm overly familiar with.
However, as the former home of the Venerable Bede and the original home of one of the most important Bibles in the world, the Gerald Codex, the town is steeped in historical significance. In the early 19th century, a coal industry developed before the shipyard was established in 1852, becoming the first armor plate manufacturer in the world. And over the next 80 years, more than 1000 ships were launched in Jarrow. Jarrow is a place that has had a lasting impact on the direction of our country and the Jarrow marches on. That crusade undoubtedly played their part in that.
I also paid tribute to the honourable Lady for bringing some of the families of the marchers to Downing Street this week, with a copy of the original petition. I also paid tribute to the Prime Minister for receiving them at number ten . I. It will surprise everybody to know that I rarely speak ill of Stanley Baldwin, but failing to receive the original marchers was wrong, and I am pleased the Prime Minister received their families. It writes a historic wrong, and I'd like to think and hope that any Prime Minister of any party would have done the same.
And while an inherently political event, what makes the Jarrow March stand out in my eyes is how it avoided being too partisan. All of the local political parties, Labour, conservative and the Liberals gave their support to the march, as did the town's churches and the business community. On top of that, during the journey down to London, the Jarrow marchers received sustenance and hospitality from local branches of all the main political parties. The march was triggered as a result of industrial jobs being lost following the collapse of Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company and the closure of the shipyard.
And there is a lesson for today. If we look at the news of the recent loss of 4000 jobs at Britain's biggest car manufacturer, the risk of losing our industrial base could not be clearer. Once those industries are gone, it will be incredibly difficult to get them back. This has been a good natured and well-intentioned debate, and so I say these out of respect, that what I would like the current government to consider is that what we've seen with the chemical, automotive, steel and many other factories and plants shutting down because of crippling energy policies, 66 billion in tax rises and the burdensome red tape like the Employment Rights Act.
As a result of these, there are 176,000 fewer jobs available now than when the government took office. Our industries need to be supported, and currently many feel like they are not on this side of the House. We do not want to see communities go through what Jarrow experienced in the 1930s, and I fear that today we risk seeing our country deindustrialized before our eyes as we remember the Jarrow March. Today, I hope that the Minister can set out how the government plan to create the conditions in which countless businesses across the country can manufacture competitively in Britain.
Cornelius Whelan, who had his death in 2003, was the last survivor of those who marched the full distance, described the march as a waste of time. I respectfully disagree. His family and the families of all the marchers should be proud. History now remembers the march very differently. The Jarrow marchers rightly have an immovable place in our country's history. Their legacy is far reaching and will continue to inspire people for years to come. And I am proud to be here on behalf of the opposition today, to recognise their important contribution to our national story and to hold the government to account on delivering for British industry and manufacturing.
And I, of course, referring to the honourable member for Strangford. Well, I said to my team, I said, can you find out if Jim Shannon was there? And they said, he's not that old. I said, I didn't mean the march, I meant the debate. But again, he spoke with eloquence and integrity about the need to get young people back into work. And that's something I recognise with with a 20 year old and a 17 year old, and I confess to being very jealous that the new Prime Minister has had a hug, and I haven't. I must ask the honourable ladies forgiveness, because Jarrow, being over 300 miles from my Bromley and Bickenhill constituency, which of course you all know is not a place I'm overly familiar with.
However, as the former home of the Venerable Bede and the original home of one of the most important Bibles in the world, the Gerald Codex, the town is steeped in historical significance. In the early 19th century, a coal industry developed before the shipyard was established in 1852, becoming the first armor plate manufacturer in the world. And over the next 80 years, more than 1000 ships were launched in Jarrow. Jarrow is a place that has had a lasting impact on the direction of our country and the Jarrow marches on. That crusade undoubtedly played their part in that.
I also paid tribute to the honourable Lady for bringing some of the families of the marchers to Downing Street this week, with a copy of the original petition. I also paid tribute to the Prime Minister for receiving them at number ten . I. It will surprise everybody to know that I rarely speak ill of Stanley Baldwin, but failing to receive the original marchers was wrong, and I am pleased the Prime Minister received their families. It writes a historic wrong, and I'd like to think and hope that any Prime Minister of any party would have done the same.
And while an inherently political event, what makes the Jarrow March stand out in my eyes is how it avoided being too partisan. All of the local political parties, Labour, conservative and the Liberals gave their support to the march, as did the town's churches and the business community. On top of that, during the journey down to London, the Jarrow marchers received sustenance and hospitality from local branches of all the main political parties. The march was triggered as a result of industrial jobs being lost following the collapse of Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company and the closure of the shipyard.
And there is a lesson for today. If we look at the news of the recent loss of 4000 jobs at Britain's biggest car manufacturer, the risk of losing our industrial base could not be clearer. Once those industries are gone, it will be incredibly difficult to get them back. This has been a good natured and well-intentioned debate, and so I say these out of respect, that what I would like the current government to consider is that what we've seen with the chemical, automotive, steel and many other factories and plants shutting down because of crippling energy policies, 66 billion in tax rises and the burdensome red tape like the Employment Rights Act.
As a result of these, there are 176,000 fewer jobs available now than when the government took office. Our industries need to be supported, and currently many feel like they are not on this side of the House. We do not want to see communities go through what Jarrow experienced in the 1930s, and I fear that today we risk seeing our country deindustrialized before our eyes as we remember the Jarrow March. Today, I hope that the Minister can set out how the government plan to create the conditions in which countless businesses across the country can manufacture competitively in Britain.
Cornelius Whelan, who had his death in 2003, was the last survivor of those who marched the full distance, described the march as a waste of time. I respectfully disagree. His family and the families of all the marchers should be proud. History now remembers the march very differently. The Jarrow marchers rightly have an immovable place in our country's history. Their legacy is far reaching and will continue to inspire people for years to come. And I am proud to be here on behalf of the opposition today, to recognise their important contribution to our national story and to hold the government to account on delivering for British industry and manufacturing.
15:36
15:36
15:36
Speaker 20
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Speaker 20
Thank you, Miss Hobhouse. It's a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and I would also like to start by thanking my hon. Friend the member for Jarrow and Gateshead East for for calling this debate. She follows in the footsteps of her predecessor, Ellen Wilkinson, MP for Jarrow and for Middlesbrough. And as we've heard, there is a an incredible history of the Gerald March. And for anyone who's interested, I can strongly recommend the book by Ellen Wilkinson MP. The Town that was Murdered. My own copies at home on my bookshelf, so I borrowed the House of Commons library copy, but I'll be returning it later today, so members may wish to wish to take it out and study more about the social conditions in Jarrow at the time.
Now, as we've heard, in October 1936, around 200 unemployed men set out from Jarrow and walked the almost 300 miles to London, asking for the opportunity to work. They carried with them the hopes of a community and a petition signed by 12,000 of their neighbours. But they were ignored by the government of the day. These men and their community will not be ignored by history nor by this government. The story of the Gerald Crusade can't be separated from the story of British industry and British shipbuilding. And today we recognise the UK's civil maritime sector as it should have been recognised then a strategic national asset underpinning prosperity, resilience and security shipbuilding ended in Jarrow.
But the wider Tyneside retains ship repair capability at Hebburn, a yard recently acquired by Ballantine. During my tenure as shipbuilding minister, and I am pleased to offer some reassurance to my hon. Friend that as Minister for investment now, I am concerned to ensure that we can continue to attract investment into British shipyards, and I am working with ministerial colleagues to maximise the opportunity of government procurement, including opportunities for Hebburn. Those areas where modern shipbuilding, ship repair and marine fabrication continue to benefit from highly skilled, well-paid industrial jobs and they are often in areas of the country that are otherwise lacking in alternatives.
And this contributes to the growth in every postcode that the Prime Minister has committed to, of course, across the whole of our United Kingdom. And again, I was pleased as shipbuilding minister to visit Harland and Wolff in Belfast and to learn from the managing director. When I asked him, what is your greatest concern? And he said the lack of space, which is quite remarkable at Harland and Wolff, but I think it really shows the strength of British shipbuilding and the opportunity for new orders now, the pride and skill that we saw in Jarrow and that I've seen in British shipyards, was demonstrated during the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders dispute of 1971 to 1972.
Faced with the liquidation and threatened job losses, shop stewards representing 8000 workers staged a disciplined work in. They kept the yards operating and continued building ships under contract. The campaign helped secure government investment and preserved shipbuilding employment on the Upper Clyde. A firm tradition of shipbuilding continues today. The sector supports more than 38,000 skilled jobs across the country. The government is expanding the national shipbuilding officer's role to oversee civil shipbuilding decisions and use procurement more strategically to give British yards and supply chains a clearer pipeline. The forthcoming Shipbuilding and Maritime Technology Action Plan will seek to align procurement, innovation and industrial capability, improve pipeline visibility, accelerate technology adoption and strengthen UK supply chains across defence and civil maritime markets.
The government is investing £448 million in UK shore Research and Development. Between 2026 and 2030, the largest government investment yet in the UK commercial maritime sector, including £150 million for zero emission infrastructure and vessels and £120 million for clean maritime demonstration projects. The tragedy at Jarrow for it was a tragedy, was that the shipbuilding industry and the community who depended on it, were left at the mercy of the market and not to improve efficiency or productivity, but to affect consolidation that would raise prices for shipbuilding, a project based industry with high fixed costs and high economies of scale.
This was a disaster. The community in Jarrow understood the need for industrial transition. They had already been through one. They'd transitioned from mining to shipbuilding. What they were asking for was a transition from shipbuilding to steel. The government of 1936 took a free market approach. This government takes a different approach, supporting a transition. Alongside our plans for shipbuilding, we are reindustrializing the UK, building on our industrial strategy. Reindustrialisation is creating more, better, well-paid jobs in manufacturing and industry, including in those sectors critical to the UK's resilience, bringing back jobs, pride and decency to the places that de-industrialisation most badly affected.
But saying what we will do is not enough. We know how we will address this. Also, the jobs plans that we've set out will ensure that workers have the opportunity to develop the skills they need for the jobs in growing areas, with opportunities across the whole country. We have published job plans for digital and technologies, clean energy, life sciences, financial services, construction and professional business services, setting out practical actions to tackle workforce and skills challenges. The Jobs Plan for professional and business services and construction were published on Monday and will support 22,500 new under 25 apprenticeships a year in businesses such as accountancy, legal services and consultants.
This comes alongside 40,000 construction placements annually as part of a previously announced construction industry ambition to create 100,000 jobs a year. Over the next year, the government will cut industrial energy costs, further, roll out further jobs plans in partnership with employers, see our new apprenticeship units and technical excellence colleges, train people for growing industries and strip back unnecessary administrative costs to
Now, as we've heard, in October 1936, around 200 unemployed men set out from Jarrow and walked the almost 300 miles to London, asking for the opportunity to work. They carried with them the hopes of a community and a petition signed by 12,000 of their neighbours. But they were ignored by the government of the day. These men and their community will not be ignored by history nor by this government. The story of the Gerald Crusade can't be separated from the story of British industry and British shipbuilding. And today we recognise the UK's civil maritime sector as it should have been recognised then a strategic national asset underpinning prosperity, resilience and security shipbuilding ended in Jarrow.
But the wider Tyneside retains ship repair capability at Hebburn, a yard recently acquired by Ballantine. During my tenure as shipbuilding minister, and I am pleased to offer some reassurance to my hon. Friend that as Minister for investment now, I am concerned to ensure that we can continue to attract investment into British shipyards, and I am working with ministerial colleagues to maximise the opportunity of government procurement, including opportunities for Hebburn. Those areas where modern shipbuilding, ship repair and marine fabrication continue to benefit from highly skilled, well-paid industrial jobs and they are often in areas of the country that are otherwise lacking in alternatives.
And this contributes to the growth in every postcode that the Prime Minister has committed to, of course, across the whole of our United Kingdom. And again, I was pleased as shipbuilding minister to visit Harland and Wolff in Belfast and to learn from the managing director. When I asked him, what is your greatest concern? And he said the lack of space, which is quite remarkable at Harland and Wolff, but I think it really shows the strength of British shipbuilding and the opportunity for new orders now, the pride and skill that we saw in Jarrow and that I've seen in British shipyards, was demonstrated during the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders dispute of 1971 to 1972.
Faced with the liquidation and threatened job losses, shop stewards representing 8000 workers staged a disciplined work in. They kept the yards operating and continued building ships under contract. The campaign helped secure government investment and preserved shipbuilding employment on the Upper Clyde. A firm tradition of shipbuilding continues today. The sector supports more than 38,000 skilled jobs across the country. The government is expanding the national shipbuilding officer's role to oversee civil shipbuilding decisions and use procurement more strategically to give British yards and supply chains a clearer pipeline. The forthcoming Shipbuilding and Maritime Technology Action Plan will seek to align procurement, innovation and industrial capability, improve pipeline visibility, accelerate technology adoption and strengthen UK supply chains across defence and civil maritime markets.
The government is investing £448 million in UK shore Research and Development. Between 2026 and 2030, the largest government investment yet in the UK commercial maritime sector, including £150 million for zero emission infrastructure and vessels and £120 million for clean maritime demonstration projects. The tragedy at Jarrow for it was a tragedy, was that the shipbuilding industry and the community who depended on it, were left at the mercy of the market and not to improve efficiency or productivity, but to affect consolidation that would raise prices for shipbuilding, a project based industry with high fixed costs and high economies of scale.
This was a disaster. The community in Jarrow understood the need for industrial transition. They had already been through one. They'd transitioned from mining to shipbuilding. What they were asking for was a transition from shipbuilding to steel. The government of 1936 took a free market approach. This government takes a different approach, supporting a transition. Alongside our plans for shipbuilding, we are reindustrializing the UK, building on our industrial strategy. Reindustrialisation is creating more, better, well-paid jobs in manufacturing and industry, including in those sectors critical to the UK's resilience, bringing back jobs, pride and decency to the places that de-industrialisation most badly affected.
But saying what we will do is not enough. We know how we will address this. Also, the jobs plans that we've set out will ensure that workers have the opportunity to develop the skills they need for the jobs in growing areas, with opportunities across the whole country. We have published job plans for digital and technologies, clean energy, life sciences, financial services, construction and professional business services, setting out practical actions to tackle workforce and skills challenges. The Jobs Plan for professional and business services and construction were published on Monday and will support 22,500 new under 25 apprenticeships a year in businesses such as accountancy, legal services and consultants.
This comes alongside 40,000 construction placements annually as part of a previously announced construction industry ambition to create 100,000 jobs a year. Over the next year, the government will cut industrial energy costs, further, roll out further jobs plans in partnership with employers, see our new apprenticeship units and technical excellence colleges, train people for growing industries and strip back unnecessary administrative costs to
15:43
Speaker 13
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Speaker 13
Particularly relating to the Prime Minister and also his criticism of Baldwin. But it's been it's been nearly a century. So I don't think I don't think he's going to get any comeback from that. And but he also expressed his concern about de-industrialisation in the UK. And so I would remind him that under the previous government, we lost around 50% of our automotive output, 30% of our chemicals output, 50% of our steel output, and around 30% of our ceramics output. This government has made efforts to support those industries to reinvest and reindustrialize. As industry minister, last year, I announced a £350 million chemical support fund, a ceramics support scheme, £2.5 billion of support for the steel industry through the Steel Strategy, Critical Minerals Strategy.
And, of course, the nationalisation of British Steel. This government remains committed to supporting the growth and investment of our industry. If we consider, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson mentioned, the issues affecting young people and young people's employment, this was also a great concern for those who marched in Jarrow at the time, and the social conditions in Jarrow were really quite appalling, and the sorts of social conditions that can be found in other parts of the country today, where there are high levels of unemployment, unemployment and poverty, also results from cramped and squalid housing conditions which were found in Jarrow at the time.
High levels of ill health amongst young people, particularly tuberculosis and a shortage of food, as was noted at the time by the very low consumption of milk by children in the local area. This was compounded by the inability of the local council to raise local taxes sufficiently high to provide relief for local people, product of the inequality of land values in places like Jarrow compared with other parts of the country. In fact, Ellen Wilkinson in her book, makes a direct comparison with the property taxes that were able to be raised in Westminster. A comparison that my my colleague the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool, has made for his own area too.
So this is a problem that persists until this day. But what the town council in Gerrard did do with the resources that they had available was always put education first because they knew and we know, the success of our country and of our industry depends on the next generation of people who will build, design and operate the industries of the future. And I know the member for Jarrow and Gateshead East has made a particular point during this anniversary of working to include young people in the commemorations of the Jarrow Crusade. It's vitally important that our young people have the opportunity to understand the histories and values of their forebears.
And I do hope that Elsie and Imogen had a very memorable meeting with the Prime Minister at Downing Street. It's also important that we support our young people to access the opportunities of work which they were asking for and rejected for in 1936, with around 1 million young people not in education, employment and training. This government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. Our measures are helping more young people take their first step into work. Since announcing an additional £2.5 billion to create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn by 2029, we've begun rolling out youth guarantees across Great Britain.
The Youth Guarantee Gateway is now available in Jobcentres. We're expanding youth hubs. We've launched the £3,000 Youth Jobs grant and are rolling out the jobs guarantee. Youth hubs are a crucial part of our youth Guarantee. They bring together the employment skills and wider support that young people need to move into work, training or education. By expanding the network to over 360 locations across the country, more young people will be able to access personalised and wraparound support in their local community.
Yes, certainly. Jim Shannon.
And, of course, the nationalisation of British Steel. This government remains committed to supporting the growth and investment of our industry. If we consider, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson mentioned, the issues affecting young people and young people's employment, this was also a great concern for those who marched in Jarrow at the time, and the social conditions in Jarrow were really quite appalling, and the sorts of social conditions that can be found in other parts of the country today, where there are high levels of unemployment, unemployment and poverty, also results from cramped and squalid housing conditions which were found in Jarrow at the time.
High levels of ill health amongst young people, particularly tuberculosis and a shortage of food, as was noted at the time by the very low consumption of milk by children in the local area. This was compounded by the inability of the local council to raise local taxes sufficiently high to provide relief for local people, product of the inequality of land values in places like Jarrow compared with other parts of the country. In fact, Ellen Wilkinson in her book, makes a direct comparison with the property taxes that were able to be raised in Westminster. A comparison that my my colleague the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool, has made for his own area too.
So this is a problem that persists until this day. But what the town council in Gerrard did do with the resources that they had available was always put education first because they knew and we know, the success of our country and of our industry depends on the next generation of people who will build, design and operate the industries of the future. And I know the member for Jarrow and Gateshead East has made a particular point during this anniversary of working to include young people in the commemorations of the Jarrow Crusade. It's vitally important that our young people have the opportunity to understand the histories and values of their forebears.
And I do hope that Elsie and Imogen had a very memorable meeting with the Prime Minister at Downing Street. It's also important that we support our young people to access the opportunities of work which they were asking for and rejected for in 1936, with around 1 million young people not in education, employment and training. This government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. Our measures are helping more young people take their first step into work. Since announcing an additional £2.5 billion to create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn by 2029, we've begun rolling out youth guarantees across Great Britain.
The Youth Guarantee Gateway is now available in Jobcentres. We're expanding youth hubs. We've launched the £3,000 Youth Jobs grant and are rolling out the jobs guarantee. Youth hubs are a crucial part of our youth Guarantee. They bring together the employment skills and wider support that young people need to move into work, training or education. By expanding the network to over 360 locations across the country, more young people will be able to access personalised and wraparound support in their local community.
Yes, certainly. Jim Shannon.
15:47
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Madam chair, first of all, can I commend the Minister for his very comprehensive and very helpful response to to the things that we've asked. The Minister's outlining the the programme, the strategy, the focus here in the mainland, which I certainly encourage, but there's lots of good things there, which I think we probably could all learn from, from the administrations, from Scotland, from Wales, from the Assembly in Northern Ireland as an example. I know the minister has been to Harland and Wolff in Belfast and I know he's keen to go. And I remember him telling me he was going over.
But he also had a chance to discuss some of the strategies that are going to happen here with us back home. So what we can maybe develop them ourselves and try to work more consistently and more across all of the nation to improve the opportunities for young people, wherever they may be.
But he also had a chance to discuss some of the strategies that are going to happen here with us back home. So what we can maybe develop them ourselves and try to work more consistently and more across all of the nation to improve the opportunities for young people, wherever they may be.
15:48
15:48
Speaker 13
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Speaker 13
Thank you. The honourable member makes a very important point, that the solutions that will help young people to get into work are understood well in local communities, because they need to respond both to the needs of that local community and the needs of local industry. And there are both in Northern Ireland and in many places around the country, excellent collaborations between industry and local local colleges. And I think particularly in Northern Ireland, the work that's done around the Short Brothers Aerospace location, where there excellent opportunities for young people and very close working with with with local further education colleges, for instance.
And I'm sure there are lessons there that could be learned in other parts of the country, too. So I thank him for making that point. We've commissioned Alan Milburn to independently review the crisis of young people not in employment, education or training, and we will consider the findings in the interim report to continue to build our reforms. And we look forward to the final recommendations being received shortly. Now we remember those men who were marching. But as the shadow minister said, we also remember those people who provided support and assistance along the way, the solidarity of working people offering shelter, food and medical supplies.
And so just like the marches in 1936 and all of those people around the country, this government recognises the value of secure work, fair pay and opportunities to progress. Employment laws have not kept pace with modern working patterns. Too many workers lack the protections that they need to work, while responsible businesses face unfair competition from those willing to exploit gaps in outdated employment laws. That's why this government has come up with our plan to make work pay. Our plan is modernising employment rights to respond to a changing labour market and create a fairer, more secure economy for workers and business.
The evidence, drawing on UK and international research alongside economic modelling, suggests the Employment Rights Act can support a better functioning labour market, more secure work, better job quality, improved productivity, fairer competition and a positive direct impact on economic growth. Over 18 million employees are expected to benefit from new protections, with the biggest gains for lower paid workers in sectors such as social care, hospitality and retail. Analysis suggests that the North East is likely to be one of the regions in the UK that benefits most from the measures included in the Employment Rights Act. Many of our reforms are already making a difference for workers.
Employees now have access to family friendly rights from day one of employment, up to 1.3 million more people are eligible for statutory sick pay, and we made it easier for workers to connect with trade unions. We have also created the Fair Work Agency, which brings enforcement functions of three predecessor bodies together in one place. So employment rights are enforced more effectively and more efficiently. Taken together, these reforms are about ensuring that economic progress is shared by the people and the communities who create it. 90 years ago, the men of Jarrow walked to demand something really fundamental the chance to work, the chance to contribute and build a better future for their families.
Their journey stands as a reminder of the consequences of economic decline, but also of the resilience, determination and solidarity of working people. The belief in the dignity of work is one that I share and that all working class communities share. And as we commemorate the crusade, our responsibility is both to remember their story and to learn through it. Through investment in industry, support for skills, stronger workers rights, and renewed opportunities for young people, we will build an economy in which every community can succeed.
Thank you.
And I'm sure there are lessons there that could be learned in other parts of the country, too. So I thank him for making that point. We've commissioned Alan Milburn to independently review the crisis of young people not in employment, education or training, and we will consider the findings in the interim report to continue to build our reforms. And we look forward to the final recommendations being received shortly. Now we remember those men who were marching. But as the shadow minister said, we also remember those people who provided support and assistance along the way, the solidarity of working people offering shelter, food and medical supplies.
And so just like the marches in 1936 and all of those people around the country, this government recognises the value of secure work, fair pay and opportunities to progress. Employment laws have not kept pace with modern working patterns. Too many workers lack the protections that they need to work, while responsible businesses face unfair competition from those willing to exploit gaps in outdated employment laws. That's why this government has come up with our plan to make work pay. Our plan is modernising employment rights to respond to a changing labour market and create a fairer, more secure economy for workers and business.
The evidence, drawing on UK and international research alongside economic modelling, suggests the Employment Rights Act can support a better functioning labour market, more secure work, better job quality, improved productivity, fairer competition and a positive direct impact on economic growth. Over 18 million employees are expected to benefit from new protections, with the biggest gains for lower paid workers in sectors such as social care, hospitality and retail. Analysis suggests that the North East is likely to be one of the regions in the UK that benefits most from the measures included in the Employment Rights Act. Many of our reforms are already making a difference for workers.
Employees now have access to family friendly rights from day one of employment, up to 1.3 million more people are eligible for statutory sick pay, and we made it easier for workers to connect with trade unions. We have also created the Fair Work Agency, which brings enforcement functions of three predecessor bodies together in one place. So employment rights are enforced more effectively and more efficiently. Taken together, these reforms are about ensuring that economic progress is shared by the people and the communities who create it. 90 years ago, the men of Jarrow walked to demand something really fundamental the chance to work, the chance to contribute and build a better future for their families.
Their journey stands as a reminder of the consequences of economic decline, but also of the resilience, determination and solidarity of working people. The belief in the dignity of work is one that I share and that all working class communities share. And as we commemorate the crusade, our responsibility is both to remember their story and to learn through it. Through investment in industry, support for skills, stronger workers rights, and renewed opportunities for young people, we will build an economy in which every community can succeed.
Thank you.
15:51
15:51
Speaker 14
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Speaker 14
Thank you so much. And can I thank the Minister for his detailed response, which I know will mean a lot to the descendants and members of our community who may be watching at home. Can I also thank the member for Strangford for his engagement and support today in his contribution? And also to all those who came along to an exhibition that I had on the Jarrow Crusade earlier this week. I will leave this debate reflecting on the legacy left behind by the brave men who marched for better. To the descendants of those who marched. To those watching at home and to the people of Jarrow generally.
I say that this debate belongs to you. Your voices matter today as much as the voices did as they did in 1936. The greatest tribute we can pay to the Jarrow Crusaders is not simply to commemorate their march, it's to continue their fight for decent work, for dignity, for solidarity and for a fairer future for our community and every community. Thank you.
I say that this debate belongs to you. Your voices matter today as much as the voices did as they did in 1936. The greatest tribute we can pay to the Jarrow Crusaders is not simply to commemorate their march, it's to continue their fight for decent work, for dignity, for solidarity and for a fairer future for our community and every community. Thank you.
15:53
15:53