Iran: Demonstrations

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for bringing this Topical Question to debate for us. As he introduced it so well, it is about a blend of our UK strategic interests and human rights and freedom of speech for the people of Iran.

As the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, indicated, our debate is less about looking at Iran through the prism of its regime—and therefore there is no question of our solidarity with people within Iran—and more about questioning the tactics and brutality of the regime. It is about highlighting in particular, as has been remarked consistently in this short debate, the bravery of women in Iran, and especially—it is what stands out—the young women in Iran, criticising in schools the president in their presence. There cannot be anything more brave than that. It should be an inspiration to the whole world.

I welcome the Minister to his position again. Since he answered his first Question yesterday on the trade deal, he is a slightly more experienced maiden, but I look forward to his maiden speech. His predecessor was exemplary in reaching out to the Opposition Front Benches and keeping us informed and I welcome the commitment he gave yesterday evening that he would carry that on. Because our time is limited, I shall just ask a number of questions, a couple of which were raised so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I welcome her contribution.

First, can the Minister give an update on payments with regard to what Iran had claimed? As the Minister will know from the briefing he will have received, these were part of some of our debates about Nazanin. We very much welcome her return, of course, but it was linked by some to payment of what the UK was claimed to owe Iran. If he can update us on the processing of that, it would be helpful.

Secondly, on the global human rights sanctions regime, these Benches welcome the Government putting financial sanctions in place on 85 individuals, on the cyber police and on the morality police. The cyber police sanctions have not been mentioned so far, but they are critical in this and I welcome them. I know that the Minister will have been briefed to say that the Government do not comment on considerations for future sanctions—so he does not need to spend time saying that; we know that—but I impress on him, to add to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that we now need to be in a position where we are preparing an audit of the property and investments of those within the regime in Iran and whether any UK interests have invested in any of the state-owned enterprises linked to the Iranian Government. That audit needs to be carried out and the City of London needs to be aware of it, because we should not be in a situation where we have delays like those we have seen with other regimes, such as Belarus and Russia, where kleptocrats have used the London laundromat approach. We need clarity that the Government are preparing that with the City of London.

My other point is linked to a question I asked in the Chamber a number of weeks ago about the BBC Persian Radio service. The BBC has been in touch with me and I am grateful for its briefing. It is horrific that the BBC staff and families of staff are being persecuted and harassed by authorities in Iran, and that the BBC itself is now under sanction as a criminal entity. That is unacceptable. Will the Government make sure that there is no platform, radio or online, which can be easily reduced by the Iranian regime? I believe that emergency funding should be made available to BBC World Service so that radio service resilience can be provided.

Finally, as requested, I hope the Minister will be able to give an update on the JCPOA. I see the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, in his place. We have had many debates on the JCPOA. It is timely that the Minister can give an update on what British policy is in the current context. If the Minister can respond to these points, I would be grateful.