The Parliamentary Ombudsman (Ann Abraham) has found that:

The U.K. should compensate Equitable Life Assurance Society policyholders who lost out when the insurer almost collapsed in 2000 because the government and regulators failed to properly supervise it for a decade.

It's odd to note that in 2003 she found when reviewing exactly the same issue:

no evidence to suggest that the Financial Services Authority failed in its regulator responsibilities

I'll ignore that for now; expectations of regulation change over time.

But let's now put this in context: the regulatory failure of a on onshore contract has cost £4.5 billion.The government is likely to pay compensation as a result. Now assume that the contract in question had been relocated offshore in the intervening years, which is happening, as are whole pension funds. Sold in the UK, written elsewhere is now the deal people are being offered. And he fund will probably involve offshore investment to a much higher degree now than in the past, totally unregulated because no one has any real idea what is happening in those places and as such open to massive risk. Suppose it is then found that the offshore contract is at fault. Or that it is found in future (and, as I note, things change) that pension trustees were reckless to have invested in hedge funds and private equity registered offshore, but losses have resulted which the pension company cannot cover. Who picks up the bill then? The taxpayer does, as is now clear.

Now tell me offshore does not pose a threat to UK financial stability, or to the well bing of the UK taxpayer. Let me assure you, it does.

And can we do anything about it? Yes, of course we can. Try this:

1) We can say all pension investments made offshore (and offshore will include all the usual culprits from Jersey onwards) will be outside the regulatory regime because there is too little information to regulate investments and contacts made there.

2) We can say all pension funds have to tell their investors what proportion of their fund is unprotected, and why.

3) We can wait for investor reaction, and watch the money come back home.

The time has come to be tough on an industry that assumes that the public will pick up its risk whilst is executives walk away with the spoils of their own disregard for the collective good.

The time to start is now.

The people who could say it's time to do that are the Treasury Select Committee. They have been deeply troubled by pension protection and offshore. It's time they linked the issues and took action to protect the ordinary UK pension contributor and the ordinary UK taxpayer. Of course, they happen to be the same thing. It is clear offshore is conspiring against them both.