Speeches by Bell.

“I absolutely agree with the right hon. Member’s focus on the generational challenges, but I have a slightly different view on what the biggest challenge is. The biggest issue for younger generations is if they do not have faith in a pensions system because they do not believe it will deliver adequate retirement incomes…”

“As a point of principle, Madam Deputy Speaker, I never fight with you—it would end badly for everyone and I would lose every time. The Conservatives would have opposed the Bill every step of the way. They would have not just been on the barricades but built them, which is the exact opposite of what the shadow Secretary…”

“Let me start by thanking Members of both Houses for their careful scrutiny of the Bill before us today. I thank Members of the other place for their amendments, which we are considering today; in particular, I thank Baroness Sherlock and Lord Katz for their steering of the Bill in recent months. This is a complex Bill,…”

“I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.”

“I have just explained to the hon. Member why he should be worried. He is happy to carry on with the status quo; we are not. We are going to set this out in two ways. First, we will specify on the face of the Bill that regulations under the reserve power cannot require more than 10% of assets to be held in qualifying as…”

“If I have understood the hon. Member’s question, we are ruling out the ability for the power to be used for any purpose other than for the broad private asset class. That would include questions of specific asset classes, but it would also include questions of geography. I hope that gives him the reassurance he is look…”

“As always, the hon. Member asks an excellent question. For people who are currently still working, it is important to keep the simple advice at the front of their mind that people should be saving towards their pension. In almost all circumstances, saving is the right thing to do, and we have strong tax incentives in t…”

“I am not going to commit from the Dispatch Box to writing 50 letters, but I will happily have a conversation with my hon. Friend about it, as I always do. Turning to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), I was going to welcome his speech, but unfortunately he spent most of his remarks praising the hair of…”

“Yes, basically I recognise the risks that the right hon. Member raises. I think that I should now turn to the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). [Interruption.] It is not that I was confused; I was worried, because she used to be a calm and reasonable person, but some…”

“I absolutely agree with the last point that the right hon. Member made. I am planning an extensive discursion on his wider point about investment in equities versus gilts shortly, so I ask him to bear with me, but it is an important point to raise. We may not agree on it, but it is important to make sure that we have a…”

“I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall contact the right hon. Member for Salisbury. The comments in the Westminster Hall debate are on the record.”

“No, I am going to finish. Let us be reasonable. Maybe Conservative Front Benchers just needed some time to think about it. What happened at Third Reading? On that occasion we had the pleasure of the shadow Secretary of State—she had not quite got to the frothing phase of her development—saying that “there is a lot in i…”

“No, we have got some more. That was before Conservative Front-Bench Members—then in a less bonkers phase of life—nodded through the Bill, which they now claim is some kind of end-of-days Armageddon. Let us be reasonable.”

“I thank the Select Committee Chair for her intervention. The organisation she mentions has been consistently making these cases. In fact, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) has spoken from the Opposition Front Bench about the work of that organisation in these debates, including in a Westminster Hall debate…”

“I am always ready to engage in exciting debates about pensions. The right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) is right to say that far more Members should be enthused enough to come and talk for as long as possible about pensions. I hope not to speak for two hours, but somewhere close to that, and I thank Members…”

“Let me try to take the right hon. Member’s questions in turn. I would think of compensation as two buckets. There will be automatic compensation relating to the withholding of funds. The FCA provides guidance on how that should be administered, and we will ensure that is put in place in full. More complicated cases—he …”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right that administering the affairs of deceased family members or friends is always challenging, both emotionally and administratively. That is why it is so important that we get this right, now that we have set out the scale of the problem. On his specific question, I encourage him to sup…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his questions —let me try to do justice to them. He is completely right that one of the reasons customers choose NS&I is that they trust the institution, but they also know that it has that 100% Government backing. It is important that we are all clear with everybody that that remains in…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about the anxiety that I am sure some people will be feeling, but it is more than that: we are talking not just about any old savings, but about bereavement cases. We do not want issues to be dragged back up in historical cases—as I said, 75% of them took place between 2008 an…”

“The right hon. Gentleman was a Treasury Minister for some duration, so he brings experience on these issues. He is right to say that, when it comes to an Executive agency such as this one, Ministers’ job is to receive assurance and provide strategic direction, so let me just say a bit about how we have been thinking ab…”