A parliamentary committee is treating the payment of a debt to Iran as a ransom.

By tying the payment, which the UK owed to Iran since around 1980, to the hostages, this investigation treats the money as a ransom and effectively criticizes the government for being slow to ransom them. Governments must not pay ransom for hostages; as Reagan taught us when he did precisely that, paying ransoms tends to encourage further kidnappings.

The reason why the UK had to pay this money to Iran is that it owed Iran the money Iran had paid for goods that were never delivered.