LONDON (AP) — Britain's parliamentary watchdog said yesterday that the government should compensate more than a million people who lost savings in the near-collapse of insurer Equitable Life eight years ago.

Equitable Life Assurance Society, Britain's oldest mutually owned insurance company, almost collapsed in 2000 under the weight of more than a billion pounds in liabilities it amassed as a result of selling pension policies that guaranteed annuity payments of up to 11.5 percent.

The payments turned out to be too expensive for the company to honour, and Equitable was forced to close to new business and slash the value of members' policies. More than a million British policyholders and more than 15,000 in other EU countries incurred major losses to their pensions, savings or investments.

Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham said the government should apologise for its "serial regulatory failure" of Equitable Life.