Baroness Northover
Main Page: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Baroness Goldie
I can speak for the current Administration. The noble Lord makes three important points. First, evidence confirms that we work together and collaboratively. We work with our intelligence services and, as the overnight incident displayed, we are ready to do our best to protect British shipping interests in that area. We engage in active diplomacy, not just with global partners but directly with Iran. Indeed, my right honourable friend Dr Murrison visited Iran at the end of June. Importantly, we take a view in conjunction with our partners under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The noble Lord is quite right: we need to conjoin all this endeavour. We believe that the comprehensive plan of action is the best way forward and we want to support it, but we have been consistently clear that our commitment to that plan depends on full compliance by Iran. We are urgently considering next steps under the terms of that plan in close co-ordination with our international partners, but I reassure the noble Lord that there is genuine discussion at this end not only across departments but with our global partners.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness hinted, this situation has escalated since the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. Does this not illustrate why we need unvarnished reports from our ambassador in Washington? What extra preparations are being made to protect major British interests and British citizens in the region if the situation escalates further?
Baroness Goldie
In a sense, I reprise what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Collins. We are actively engaged diplomatically in the region, where we have UK interests. As the overnight incident illustrated, we have naval capacity, which came to the aid of the British tanker. That is to be applauded and we should praise the crew of HMS “Montrose”, which assisted in a very effective and satisfactory manner. As my noble friend Lord Bates said, we are anxious to ensure that we do everything we can to de-escalate tensions. That is certainly the role of the United Kingdom Government, and we are unrelenting in our efforts to achieve that objective not just through our diplomatic endeavours but in conjunction with our global partners.