Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between David Lammy and David Reed(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr David Lammy)
The UK is supportive of US efforts to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. We have encouraged Iran to engage with President Trump’s efforts in good faith and to find a diplomatic solution. Since the beginning of May, I have raised Iran with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the special envoy to the middle east, Steve Witkoff. We have discussed the range of threats that Iran poses to the UK and our partners.
Mr Lammy
I remind the hon. Gentleman that on 4 March the UK specified Iran under the foreign influence registration scheme, which targets those who undertake malign activity in the UK. Of course we keep proscription under review. We are looking closely at the area of state threats; that is traditionally very different from the sorts of cells and terrorist communities that we do proscribe. That is why the Government continue to look at this area very carefully.
David Reed
Our United Kingdom and the United States are aligned in the view that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a serious threat to global stability. With nuclear negotiations currently under way between the US and Iran, can the Secretary of State inform the House what outcome his Department would consider to be a success from a British perspective? Crucially, does he have a contingency plan if those talks fail to produce an acceptable result?
Mr Lammy
Iran is now producing roughly one significant quantity of highly enriched uranium every six weeks. That is 40 times above the limit in the joint comprehensive plan of action—the deal that we struck with Iran, which I have in front of me. I am really crystal clear about this. Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon; it must reverse its escalations—we have seen that in its enrichment programme; it must not carry out any critical weaponisation work; and these terms have to be fully verifiable. Unless we get that, we will see a snapback of the sanctions regime that we struck with it 10 years ago.
Syria
Debate between David Lammy and David Reed(5 months ago)
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David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
The situation in the middle east is extremely volatile, and the situation that has played out in Syria over recent days only adds to that instability. Has the Foreign Secretary had conversations in recent days with Ministry of Defence colleagues about the potential need to reinforce and bolster security at our sovereign base areas in Cyprus?
Mr Lammy
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that those discussions are ongoing, as he would expect given the extent of the challenges in the middle east, and particularly the challenges previously in Lebanon.