1. ‘The Parliamentary Commissioner is Parliament’s Ombudsman: Government should respect her.’

2. ‘It was only when we called the Minister for Veterans to give evidence that the MoD discovered that it had not used consistent criteria for granting awards, and belatedly began a review.’

3. ‘It is a source of regret and shame that the MoD received the Ombudsman’s report a year ago, on 18 January 2005, and did nothing until our hearing meant that it had to address the report properly. It has been forced into conducting the review the Ombudsman recommended.’

4. ‘It is not unprecedented for the Government to contest an Ombudsman’s findings of maladministration. It is, however, unprecedented for there to be so many problems in such a short space of time. Our scrutiny leads us to conclude that the fault lies with the Government, not the Ombudsman.’

5. ‘The Parliamentary Commissioner is Parliament’s Ombudsman: Government must respect her.’

6. ‘It’s maladministration –
get over it!’

7. ‘We were mystified before last week’s session as to why it could be to the Government’s advantage to resist the Ombudsman’s findings in this case.
Frankly, we are none the wiser now.’

8. ‘If there has been no new announcement from the Department by the end of the month, we will need to consider asking you to explain the existing position to us in public in early March. I hope however that will not be necessary.’

9. ‘Although it may appear frustrating that the resolution of Ombudsman reports sometimes has to take such political and tortuous routes, on this occasion assisted by the Parliamentary timescale, the Cold Comfort report did once again demonstrate the ultimate effectiveness of such methods.’

10. ‘Shabby, constitutionally dubious and procedurally improper’

11. ‘.. choosing to act as judge on its own behalf’ and
‘for reasons that are not well explained’.

12. ‘The Government has produced an essentially political response to a quasi-judicial investigative report from the Ombudsman, and as a result has ended up satisfying nobody.’

13. ‘We will implement the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recommendation to make fair and transparent payments to Equitable Life policy holders, through an independent payment scheme, for their relative loss as a consequence of regulatory failure.’

14. ‘Whilst I recognise that some of the people who complained to me will be extremely disappointed by the Government’s decisions on affordability and eligibility, I cannot say that those decisions are incompatible with the recommendations in my report.’

15. ‘As Parliament’s Ombudsman, it has been my task to report independently to Parliament on this matter, so that Parliament can be informed in the decisions it takes.’

16. ‘Parliament has considered the issues raised in my report and the recommendations I made and has provided its response. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on what Parliament has decided.’

17. ‘I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.’
Nelson Mandela