Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise the strength of feeling in this House, and in the other place, on this subject. Let me explain what the Government have done. The Home Office is leading work on countering Iranian state threats in the UK, making full use of the breadth and expertise of government and our extraordinary and courageous police, security and intelligence agencies. On 1 November, the Security Minister announced in the other place that the Prime Minister has asked him to lead the Defending Democracy Taskforce to build further resilience within our institutions in order to safeguard against physical, personnel and cyber threats.

The National Security Act will provide another significant toolkit in the fight against individuals working for state entities such as the IRGC; it criminalises a wide range of hostile activities conducted by, for or on behalf of foreign powers. Materially assisting a foreign intelligence service in any activity in or related to the UK will be a crime.

We continue to make use of any and every opportunity to call out Iran’s malign activity—I apologise for the long answer but there is a lot to say. More than 350 Iranian individuals and entities have been sanctioned for activities, including human rights violations. Since January 2023, we have sanctioned more than 140 Iranian individuals and entities in response to the regime’s human rights violations. That is being strengthened.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, is there not a much simpler and shorter answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker: the Foreign Office?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

It is a shorter answer, I will certainly give the noble Lord that. The Government keep the list of proscribed organisations under review. We do not comment on whether a specific organisation is or is not being considered for proscription. This position has been informed by several considerations, including to avoid creating an expectation that the Government will proscribe a certain organisation, to reduce the risk of an organisation taking evasive action before the proscription order comes into force, and to manage the risk of any subsequent decision being vulnerable to challenge on procedural grounds. The Government will always consider the full range of powers available to tackle threats on our soil.