Rally over Equitable payouts scheme
The plight of thousands of pensioners who are shut out of a £1.5 billion Equitable Life compensation scheme has been highlighted in a demonstration outside Parliament.
Actress Honor Blackman, who had a pension with the mutual which was brought to its knees more than a decade ago, spoke at the rally organised by the Equitable Members Action Group (Emag).
The group has been lobbying the Government over a decision to leave 10,000 people out of the equitable payouts compensation scheme because they bought their annuities before a cut-off point in 1992.
Speaking just weeks after the Government launched a landmark scheme which will see up to 10 million people eventually placed in a workplace pension, former Bond girl and Avengers star Ms Blackman said the scandal had tarnished people’s faith in pension saving.
“After what happened to us, why would anybody in their right mind bother to save for a pension?” said Ms Blackman.
A Treasury spokesman said the Equitable Life payments scheme was set up to provide payments to around 950,000 policyholders by April 2014.
He said: “The scheme continues to make good progress, with tens of thousands more policyholders having received payment since the scheme last reported progress in July.
“The scheme will issue a further progress report in the New Year, but with approaching £500 million distributed by the scheme, the scheme remains on track for completion by April 2014.”
Tim Jones, chief executive for Nest, the low-cost pension scheme set up under the new rules to automatically place people into workplace pensions, said: “We sympathise with the plight of people who have lost pensions in the past.
“Consumers should be reassured that Nest is trust based, has no shareholders and is run solely in the interests of our members.”
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