Prevention of Nuclear Proliferation

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Absolutely. They do so less and less each day, and that is one of the major regrets for someone such as me who believes that Iran has a great future and that the west often looks to the wrong allies in the middle east in the long term. I disagree, however, with the position on the Mujahedin-e Khalq. I believe that if one of the few things the Iranians and the Americans both agree on is that the MEK should be a proscribed terrorist organisation, we should perhaps maintain that.

I have some specific questions for the Minister about the sanctions. Why did he choose to include the Central Bank of Iran? A number of cases have been brought to my attention, including one from a company in Cambridge that has gone through five regimes of British export licences, and has European as well as Treasury approval to sell engineering goods to Iran. It is owed £12 million for goods already delivered and the sanctions—either those effectively extraterritorially imposed by the United States or our own—have prevented it from getting its money. I suspect—in fact, I know—that that threatens its very viability. When I went to visit Treasury officials, the answer to the problem was that they did not really get engaged in commercial-to-commercial decisions. I am afraid that the Treasury’s decisions have caused the problem, and in the past, companies—including American companies—have used a corridor from central bank to central bank to clear certain moneys. Not so long ago, JP Morgan in New York received money from Iranians that was owed to an American/UK contractor. If they can do it, so can we.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The only question I would ask is: would not the Iranians consider it to be part of the irritation factor not to use such a channel, if there was one? They could stop that payment, which is owed to one of our companies, just to irritate us further, even if there was such an avenue.

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend would have a point if it was not for the fact that at the moment, the Iranians need our goods more than we need theirs. I meet plenty of day-to-day Iranians in business and everything else—not in my business, as I do not have any such interests—who try to do the right thing and live by the rule of law.

Secondly, I ask the Minister what our European colleagues are doing. Historically, Germany and Italy are some of the biggest traders with Iran, and my worry is that the strength of the E3 plus 3 was unity. That was its strength: we brought together the three European powers of Britain, Germany and France along with China, Russia and America. For every round of sanctions that has come before this House or the international community, there have been fewer and fewer signatories to it. As the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) pointed out, as we get fewer and fewer signatories we are at risk of undermining the message that says that we all agree that Iran should not be progressing along such a path.

My worry is that the Iranians are super-sensitive to such differences. They are one of the greatest trading nations in history, of course, and my word, are they canny! When I was there, there was no shortage of some of the things that were subject to sanctions. They used to use the Bahrainis as one of the greatest routes for money, goods, new cars and so on. Without Germany and without Italy, there is a real danger that we could be left high and dry.