Iran: Nuclear Deal

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I take my right hon. Friend’s cautionary statement. Of course, the difference in the case of Russia’s cheating on the biological weapons agreements was that we did not have the kind of comprehensive intrusive inspections and access regime that we will have in relation to Iran. He is right, however, that while we should go forward with optimism, as others have suggested, we should also be cautious and recognise that there is a big deficit of trust to overcome. We need these access and inspection regimes, and we need to proceed cautiously, not least because, if we cannot reassure our partners in the region that we are approaching this cautiously and sensibly, we will lose them and we will not be able to encourage them to engage in the way that we want.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I say gently to the Foreign Secretary that history will decide whether this was an historic agreement; it might be a bit premature to say so now. These negotiations took longer to conclude than some of the safeguards he talks about will be in place—it has taken us more than 10 years to get to this point. I want to return to the point about Iran using the lifted sanctions to support its proxies. The right hon. Gentleman needs to reassure the House a little more that when we lift the sanctions, Iran will not simply become our proxy to fight our enemies?