David Prosser: Justice at last for Equitable Life victims?

Outlook One announcement made by the coalition yesterday that should be universally welcomed – assuming it is to be taken at face value – is the promise to offer the victims of the Equitable Life scandal a better deal. Whatever one's views about the performance generally of the previous Labour administration, its failure to do the right thing by Equitable savers was shameful.

Having watched their insurer collapse in as clear a case of regulatory failure as you'll see, those who lost most of their life savings fought for eight years to get compensation. When, in 2008, the Parliamentary Ombudsman ruled in their favour, it looked as if Equitable savers – those who had not died in the meantime, that is – would get justice. Only for the then Government to set up a pedestrian inquiry into how some token payments might be awarded.

The new Government appears to be promising something much more generous, with compensation for "relative loss as a consequence of regulatory failure". About time too.