Simon Read: The latest Equitable Life failure is unbelievable

More than 200,000 people who lost money in the collapse of Equitable Life may miss out on compensation because of serious failings by the Government.

The Public Accounts Committee's latest report into the scandal revealed that the Government had destroyed contact details of 353,000 policyholders in 2011.

The Treasury has set a deadline of March 2014 to close the compensation scheme but because of the mess, that doesn't leave enough time to track down all the former policyholders of the failed insurer.

That's just not acceptable. If the 200,000 owed tax to the Treasury you can bet strong-armed government officers would be knocking on their doors before you could say Coalition cock-up.

The deadline should be scrapped and effort redoubled to track down those that lost out. And if any cash cannot be returned to victims, it should be shared among other victims, not returned to the Treasury coffers as is the current plan.