Iran

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I start by paying tribute first to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for bringing the issue of Iran and, in particular, concerns about dual nationals, especially Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, back to the Chamber, and secondly to my noble friend Lady Northover. As my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed pointed out, while she was our foreign affairs spokesperson in the Lords, she raised these issues on 20 occasions.

I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for yet again bringing to the Chamber’s awareness the concerns of nationals in another country—people working as journalists for the BBC Persian service and people working to get the truth out, who are very often the interpreters on whose behalf she is speaking. It is very easy to think that we are focusing on just one or two very narrow issues. Understanding the difficulty of journalists in speaking truth to power and getting a message out in Persian is important. So although slightly beyond the remit of this debate on the JCPOA and dual nationals, those issues are important. Will the Minister say what support the Government are giving to the BBC Persian service?

From these Benches, I support the JCPOA, as did the opening speakers. Later in the debate, slight concerns were expressed, but at the beginning I thought every speaker was going to say almost the same thing: that the JCPOA was a very important agreement. Like my noble friend Lord Purvis, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, I was a member of the International Relations and Defence Committee when it looked at nuclear non-proliferation. As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, pointed out, the JCPOA was not good just for Iran. It was good for security and non-proliferation. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Austin, that Iran has breached the agreement. It has, but what signal did the United States under Donald Trump send by pulling out of the JCPOA? As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, pointed out, President Biden does not seem to have deviated very much from the actions of President Trump. Can the Minister tell us what conversations he, the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister have had with President Biden or with Blinken about the JCPOA and getting the United States back on board?

The rhetoric of candidate Biden, Senator Biden, when he ran for the presidency and what is happening how may not be as in sync as they might be. Given that the United Kingdom is so keen to have global reach, part of that surely has to be in our negotiations with the United States. If we want the JCPOA to function, the E3 are important, but ensuring that the United States is back at the table is crucial. I very strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that the UK’s position has been about active diplomacy and sanctions. What sort of active diplomacy are the Government pursuing at present, not just to get the US back to the table, but to get Iran back to the table? In particular, what work is the new Foreign Secretary doing to ensure that the rights of dual nationals are being secured? As we have heard, we are now on the fourth Foreign Secretary who has been dealing with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. When he was Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister’s words were perhaps not always as diplomatic as they might have been. Can we hope that Liz Truss will do a better job?

It is vital that we understand that some of Iran’s actions, not just in uranium enrichment but in human rights and perhaps torture, need to be looked at so that we understand, and we would like the Government to show, that while it is important that we get Iran back to the table, we also should not be afraid to call it out when there are concerns on torture.

My final point picks up on the points from the noble Lords, Lord Dubs and Lord Lamont, at the start of this debate. If the UK has a debt of £400 million to Iran and we want to show it that we are serious about our commitments, surely we should look at resolving that debt so that we can say that we have done everything we should and we are now holding it to account to deliver on the JCPOA and on the rights of dual nationals.