Compensation for South West Wiltshire's Equitable Life victims is long overdue

12.16.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 28th May 2010

Victims of the Equitable Life collapse can finally expect compensation as Liberal Democrat MPs push forward new legislation.

The Equitable Life Bill, which was outlined to the House of Commons on Wednesday (May 26), will give the Treasury the authority to make payments to policyholders or dependents who have been fighting the Labour Government for compensation since 2000.

A previous Liberal Democrat motion to get compensation for the millions of people involved was defeated in October 2009.

The previous Government continually ignored the millions of people who lost their savings. People in South West Wiltshire lost up to half their pensions in the fiasco yet Labour failed to act, ignoring Liberal Democrat advice, ignoring the High Court and ignoring an Ombudsman report.

This Bill is a massive relief to thousands of pensioners and is long overdue.

It's good that something the Liberal Democrats have been calling for can now finally happen. We are using our position in Government to give policyholders the money they deserve.