Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale (Lab)]

My Lords, the facts about the arrest of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in April 2016 and her subsequent imprisonment are well known to this House and have been expertly and movingly explained and expounded on by my noble friend Lord Collins and other participants in this debate, so suffice it to say her ordeal is continuing. Her husband, as he began his recent hunger strike outside the Foreign Office, said,

“The reason I’m camped here is that Nazanin has been held for five and a half years, the British Government has not done nearly enough and I have lost faith in their approach.”


Who can blame him for that? Certainly not the group of parliamentarians, including me, from both Houses and all parties who visited him during his hunger strike to show support. It is astonishing that our superb, experienced Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service and, indeed, HMG, have seemed so useless and clumsily inept in this case. I am not sure whether I am more angry or ashamed. In fact, I am probably both about what has happened here.

It has been clear from the start that this and other similar actions from Iran are linked to settlement of the payment of the debt owed by Britain to Iran—a debt confirmed in international arbitration and now accepted as valid by Her Majesty’s Government. Yes, it is reprehensible of Iran to use human beings as hostages and, yes, there are sanctions about transferring money to Iran, not least from the United States. However, the fact is that, although the UK has a correct policy not to pay ransom for kidnapped hostages, this is not a ransom, as other participants have said; it is an acknowledged legal debt to be repaid. As for US sanctions, in May 2016, President Obama paid a similar debt owed by the United States. This was paid in cash and delivered by plane, and therefore did not violate US sanctions in paying the debt back to Iran.

The Government need to get their act together and return Nazanin home to her husband and child, and to the country of which she is a citizen, where she has chosen to live, and whose Government have been letting her down so very badly.