Ben Wallace
Main Page: Ben Wallace (Conservative - Wyre and Preston North)Department Debates - View all Ben Wallace's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Mr Hague
We urge Israel to join the non-proliferation treaty—that is the long-established position of the United Kingdom. However, those who ask Israel to address nuclear issues have to recognise that one way that would make it impossible for it to ever do that would be for Iran to develop a nuclear capability. That would be the end of any hope for a middle east free of nuclear weapons. The settling of this Iranian nuclear issue is very important to going on to any other issues.
Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)
We never would have had a British empire if our diplomats had been worried about health and safety at work. Given that the new President-elect has said that he would like to reopen our embassy and that we have not broken off diplomatic relations, is it not perhaps time for us to try to reopen our embassy in Tehran and demonstrate that trust is built in small steps? Being absent from the discussion will not help us at all.
Mr Hague
First of all, we are not absent from the discussion; we are part of the E3 plus 3, so we have direct discussions with Iran on the nuclear issue. Nor have we broken diplomatic relations with Iran. I must say to my hon. Friend that the danger in which our staff were placed was sufficiently great and the destruction of their possessions and the invasion of the embassy sufficiently unacceptable that I find describing it as a health and safety issue inappropriate.