Budget 2013: £5,000 for Equitable Life victims

Victims of the Equitable Life scandal who have been shut out of a compensation scheme will receive £5,000, the Chancellor George Osborne announced.

Campaigners, including the actress Honor Blackman, have carried out high-profile demonstrations over a decision to leave 10,000 people out of the compensation scheme because they bought their annuities before a cut-off point in 1992.

Mr Osborne said those on lower incomes would receive £10,000. He described the payments as “ex gratia” and said they were being made because the government wanted to do “the right thing”.

The Equitable Members’ Action group (Emag), which has been lobbying for the government to do more to help the pre-1992 annuitants, described the payouts as like a “winter fuel payment on steroids”.

Paul Braithwaite, general secretary of Emag, said: “I welcome the news that the screaming
injustice of the exclusion to
date of Equitable Life’s oldest pensioners from any compensation is to now be partially
addressed.”

Emag estimated that the newly announced payments would only cover about 30 per cent of losses on average.