Extract from Commons
Ugent Question on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
(Henley)
(Con): In view of the growing normalisation between Arab states and
Israelin an anti-Iran alliance targeted at its
human rights abuses and its regional aggression, how is the Foreign
Office going to tap into this source of growing antagonism towards
what Iran is doing in order to achieve Nazanin’s release?
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (): I think there is widespread support for the UK’s
attempts to bring our dual nationals home. I cannot speak on
behalf of other Governments, but I hope that Iran will have seen
that there is international support for us. Ultimately, as I have
said in response to previous questions, there is an opportunity
now for Iran to reset its international reputation by doing the
right thing and permanently releasing the British dual nationals
in detention.
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Extract from committee
stage of the Pension Schemes Bill (second sitting)
(Grantham and
Stamford) (Con): Does the Minister agree that if we look around
the world at where commercial transactions have been incorporated
into dashboards—for example, in Israel and
Denmark—we see that there have been no cases of mis-selling, so
any risks spoken about in this debate are somewhat overblown,
given that there is no precedent?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
(): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point.
That does not mean to say that we do not have a regulatory system
that ensures that there are protections, but the nature of a
dashboard and international examples definitely suggest that this
is an empowerment and an assistance to individual consumers.
...Other countries have done things in different ways—they do not
necessarily have the pension system that we have. We have a very
substantial private pension system; some other countries will not
have such private pension systems—the hon. Lady will have to ask
them. It is argued that the right way forward—having looked at
what countries such as Israel and Denmark have done—is to
have a parallel system and two systems, commercial and public,
working together. We already have a public system, whether it is
“Check your state pension” or the pension tracing service, that
exists with commercial providers. What we do not have is the
great capability of dashboard and I believe, with respect, that
we are doing the appropriate thing to drive that forward...
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