Iran

Hamish Falconer Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)]

Let me start by joining the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) in offering my condolences to the family of Ann Widdecombe. I also join my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher) in thanking Godfrey and Margaret in the Tea Room, who are retiring today. I know that some representatives in this Chamber may not entirely agree with this, but I also thank Richard from the Strangers Bar. I have been here for only two years, but I have been very well looked after by Richard many times in the Strangers Bar, as I know many others have been.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. It would be remiss of me if I did not put on record my thanks to Godfrey and Margaret—my Nigerian mum here—in the Tea Room.

[Mr Falconer]

I am grateful to Members for their valuable interventions in this debate, and I will endeavour to respond to all the points raised. I may leave the Oxford Union point to Opposition Members, if that is okay—there was extensive debate about who won what debate. I am very glad that we are going to have a Cambridge Prime Minister, rather than an Oxford one, so perhaps we do not need to go quite so much into previous debates.

[The Minister for Security (Dame Angela Eagle)]

That is very controversial!

[Mr Falconer]

That may not be the most controversial thing I say.

[Dr Evans]

Will we ever see the Cambridge Prime Minister at a debate?

[Mr Falconer]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will not be disappointed. He had an opportunity to hear from the future Prime Minister yesterday, but the current Prime Minister is in place until the end of term, as he knows.

Let me move on to questions raised by Conservative Members, particularly about the statutory instrument. There was a question about the designation of the IRGC and the other two entities. I do not wish to prejudge the decisions of this House and the House of Lords, but I hope that the statutory instrument will be passed by this place immediately after this debate, and will make its way through the other place very swiftly, hopefully by the end of the week. The statutory instrument would then be in force by the end of the week.

[Dr Arthur]

Some colleagues have questioned the need for this debate. Like others, I welcome the news that we are going to proscribe the IRGC, but online, I have seen people who are basically antisemitic claiming that this is some kind of plot, that Jews are taking over the world, and that they were behind this decision. That is why it was right to have this debate today. It has been fantastic to hear colleagues from across the House reminding us of just how barbaric the regime is, and of the role it plays in the UK. I thank Ministers for the proscription, and I thank those who took part in this debate who talked about this barbaric regime.

[Mr Falconer]

It is important that we designate all three organisations. Two of them have links to Iran, and one of them has been named in relation to barbarous attacks on the Jewish community in this country. It is right that we take this action. I am very pleased to be joined by the Security Minister, who will introduce the statutory instrument shortly.

I heard Conservative Members express a desire for us to move quickly on this question. I recognise the concern in the House—it was reflected in some of the debate this afternoon—to ensure that we balance the need to take firm action against the Iranian regime with maintaining diplomatic relations with it. We could hear that concern in some of the exchanges between Members. I believe that the tools that we are introducing following the Jonathan Hall review get that balance right. These are firm measures in response to totally unacceptable behaviour. I have summoned the Iranian ambassador within the last week, and I have instructed my officials to do so again.

The hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon referred to normal diplomacy. We have to be absolutely clear that we wish to maintain diplomatic relations with Iran, but we will not accept attacks on people in our country, whether they are Jewish or diplomats from elsewhere. We will not accept arson attacks on ambulances. All that is totally unacceptable, and the United Kingdom—with the support of everyone in this House, I believe—will put in place the measures we need to ensure that these attacks cannot continue.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have long called in this House for the proscription of the IRGC. Last year, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I sit, undertook an inquiry into transnational repression, which found that Iran was one of the most flagrant perpetrators of transnational repression globally. The IRGC uses proxy criminal networks, surveillance and direct threats to silence journalists, opposition groups and the Iranian diaspora in this country. How will they be protected by the proscription?

[Mr Falconer]

Many Members of the House will have looked carefully on the Friday before last at the judgment relating to an attack on a journalist here. Let me say a little more. It is neater and more accurate to refer to the power in the statutory instrument, which we hope will be passed, as a designation, rather than a proscription. The statutory instrument, and the designation that should then follow, will give power to the police and the security services to take action against anyone who is a supporter of the designated groups. MI5 in particular has been clear that this power is welcome and will give it an additional ability to disrupt. It is clearly not the only tool in our arsenal. We already have extensive sanctions against the Iranian regime. We are already taking action—or rather, more properly, the police and security services are taking action—under the existing National Security Act 2023. The legislation passed with Royal Assent on 8 July, now supplemented by the statutory instrument, will provide further powers to the police and the Security Service. The House will understand that I will not allude to how the police might use their new powers—that will be an independent operational matter for them—but I am confident that they will have greater ability to go after groups of concern.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

The Minister makes a very important point about operational independence, but elected councillors across the country, from different parties, have blatantly ignored the fact that these are terrorist organisations, and have supported them. They are there for the antisemitic comments that are made, and they have been shown recently to be stabbing effigies. These are elected people. The Minister for Security is in her place. It is important that there is no fear of going after councillors, just because they are elected; if they make these comments, they must be called out.

I take this opportunity to place on the record how much I supported the Prime Minister and his family, and regretted the disgraceful fire-bombing of their family home. However, councillors, perhaps from another wing of politics, put out the most disgusting allegations about that story. They were completely untrue, but had clearly come straight out of Moscow, and were brought into the cyber and cognitive despair that we see being built. I wanted to make those points because I have not yet had a chance to do so. It is important that anybody who thinks that they can flout the laws that are being brought in can feel the full force of the law.

[Mr Falconer]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that courteous and generous question. Let me be absolutely explicit about the effect. If Parliament approves these designations later this week, anyone supporting, assisting or obtaining material benefit from these groups will be subject to new criminal offences, and could face up to 14 years in prison. The law operates without fear or favour, regardless of position. Of course, our speech in this place is protected, but that is not the case elsewhere. We would expect the law to be applied evenly throughout the country.

[Luke Myer]

I wish to push the Minister on the point about social media disinformation. This is one of the biggest issues affecting our democracy, and western democracies around the world, when it comes to the threat from not only Iran but other hostile states. I am no closer to understanding which part of Government is responsible for leading on tackling this challenge. Where is the plan? Who is responsible? I wonder if the Minister can offer clarification on that.

[Mr Falconer]

That is a really important question. In my career as a diplomat, I saw the extent of disinformation and hostile efforts to influence others change incredibly quickly. Iran has been described in this debate as not doing normal diplomacy. It is not just Iran. The right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) mentioned the obvious efforts of Moscow to have influence in a whole range of ways, whether through the Wagner Group—now the Africa Corps—or online. I am afraid to have to inform my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer), if he is not already aware of it, that quite a lot of the state-backed Russian media spend quite a lot of time talking about just how awful we all are in this House.

This is a really important area of work. The Security Minister leads the defending democracy taskforce, which is driven from the centre of Government—of course, we in the Foreign Office have an important role to play, but so do many other arms of Government. There is no lack of urgency on the part of Government in dealing with this problem. It is, of course, difficult to delineate between disinformation and disagreement, but you know it when you see it, and many of us in this House with experience of foreign affairs have seen just how dramatically it has risen as an issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) rightly referred to the noticeable drop in commentary on the merits of Scottish independence following the interventions—I do not wish to disagree with friends in the Chamber on the merits of that case, though as the House might expect, I am an ardent Unionist, with an English mother and a Scottish father.

Madam Deputy Speaker, with your permission, I will make a little progress and turn to what is happening in Iran, lest I leave Conservative Members complaining that I have taken the full two hours. I do not like to do this, but let me gently correct the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold—I am afraid that there are missiles flying, and they are flying towards our friends. I condemn in the strongest terms the reckless attacks on commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz and, indeed, on countries in the region. These include Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Jordan. The Conservative defence spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), asked what support we have given to those countries. We still have British fighter jets in the air seeking to defend our friends and partners, we have the Sky Sabre programme, and we have forward-deployed a range of support from the RAF. I join the right hon. Member in thanking both our armed forces and their families—I think he referred to the home base. For much of the Royal Air Force, the home base is Lincoln, and I am particularly grateful to the families there.

We have called out what is intolerable aggression from Iran—not just by ourselves, and not just with our counterparts in the region, but with friends elsewhere, including France and Germany. The House should be clear about what Iran has done over the past week; it is seeking not only to strike our friends and partners, but to assert control over what are very clearly Oman’s territorial waters. It has been explicit that one of the things it is most offended by is the passage of ships through what is sometimes called the southern channel of the strait of Hormuz. That is practically the beaches of Oman. Oman is a long-standing friend and ally of this country; it has full rights to its own territory and its own waters, and what Iran is seeking to do is a terrible threat to a principle that this House has valued for a very long time, which is the freedom of navigation. We want to see no tolls and no restrictions, and we want a return to diplomacy. We want the memorandum of understanding to be clearly in force, implemented in good faith, verifiable and in line with international law.

Our priorities remain de-escalation, the protection of civilian shipping and the full reopening of the strait. However, as many hon. and right hon. Members have said, Iran also must never have a nuclear weapon, and we continue to engage closely with our partners in the region and, indeed, to be clear with Iran itself about that. For understandable reasons, we have talked a great deal about the strait, but let me set out the clear and verifiable steps that we expect of Iran in relation to the nuclear issue. We must now have full co-operation with the IAEA, and it must have full access to all nuclear sites in Iran.

To return to the strait of Hormuz, as many hon. and right hon. Members have said, what happens there affects all of our constituents. I unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks on commercial shipping, which have cost innocent seafarers their lives, damaged the environment and left global trade unable to flow freely. Many of those strikes have been in Omani waters; the MOU between the US and Iran in no way abrogated Oman’s rights to its own territorial sea, and we stand with Oman.

As a result of Iran’s reckless actions, particularly over the past few days, we have now seen daily transits decline from around 150 vessels a day before the conflict to just a handful yesterday. No country has the right to hijack international shipping or to hold the global economy hostage. This crisis will be felt by some of the world’s most vulnerable people, who will bear its brunt most extremely. Iran must halt these attacks on international shipping, and it must support the reopening of the strait and a return to de-escalation and diplomacy, as envisaged in the memorandum of understanding that it signed.

The UK will continue to stand for freedom of navigation, both in the strait and across the world. Our priority in the strait negotiation is to ensure unimpeded passage without the threat of violence, tolls, fees or conditions. We will continue to stand up for international law, as reflected in the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, for freedom of navigation, for global navigation rights, and for seafarer safety. We will continue, alongside France, to lead efforts to reassure international shipping. That is why we have established the multinational military mission—the MMM—to support de-mining, to reassure shipping and to help reopen the strait. Some 28 countries have now pledged their support for these efforts.

The Foreign Secretary convened a meeting of more than 40 countries, as well as the International Maritime Organisation and the EU, to build consensus and determination across the international community to secure freedom of navigation and reopen the strait. We welcome the IMO’s evacuation corridor initiative and its mandate to restore safe and unhindered transit through the strait. The IMO must be enabled to resume that work as soon as possible.

[Mr Francois]

Without asking the Minister to reveal any operationally sensitive information, for reasons that we all understand, is the Government’s position that they will not seek to use the capability of the international coalition for de-mining to clear mines from the strait unless, in effect, they have Iranian consent for de-mining?

[Mr Falconer]

We have to be extremely clear about the circumstances of the strait. It is clear that Oman has the right to do what it wishes within its own waters, consistent with international law. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will have seen the statement from France and Britain recently about our intent to support the Omanis in de-mining, if that is what they want. We have been clear that the MMM is intended to be a defensive effort. It is not committing the UK into the wider conflict between the US and Iran; it is a defensive measure. We do not require the consent of Iran to be in Omani or international waters. That is an important principle that this House has upheld for many decades—perhaps even centuries—and we will continue to do so.

I will turn from the strait to what happens here at home. Important points were made in the debate about the role of Persian language media organisations and their associated journalists. I am afraid that it is true that the Iranian intelligence service has a long-standing pattern of targeting Jewish and Israeli people, and there appear to have been efforts to target journalists, too. We are firm in our commitment to protect the Jewish community, and we will continue to work urgently to stamp out vile antisemitism. As foreign states increasingly seek to promote threats on our streets, we are taking concrete measures to crack down on those who try to undermine our country and its security.

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

On the threats to British citizens, two British citizens are detained in Iran in Evin prison: Craig and Lindsay Foreman. They are innocent. They have been arbitrarily detained there for more than one and a half years, after a flagrantly unfair trial. It has been reported that Craig has now been sentenced to a further two years, for reasons that seem entirely opaque. The couple have been on a hunger strike for 68 and 59 days, and both have lost significant weight. I welcome the appointment of a special envoy for consular cases and the state threat designation for the IRGC, but what steps are the Government taking that will give the Foremans and their family hope that welfare items will reach them, that full communications will be restored, and that the Government have a plan to get them home?

[Mr Falconer]

My hon. and learned Friend has been a doughty advocate for his constituents, and I am deeply concerned by the reports that he has mentioned. I am aware of them, and I am urgently seeking an update from the Iranian authorities on whether those concerning reports are indeed true. We have spoken many times about the case of his constituents, and I am continuing to meet the family regularly. He also referred to the appointment of the envoy, which is a welcome step: I am sure that Mr Burt will make a real contribution in the world. I recognise that the families of both Foremans will continue to be anxious for updates, and I will provide them in as timely a way as I can—often outside the House, for reasons that my hon. and learned Friend will understand.

My hon. and learned Friend has rightly turned the discussion to human rights. We have heard some powerful speeches, including that of the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O’Hara), about the circumstances of Iranians in Iran. I know that a number of Members have constituents with family links in Iran, and they will be all too aware of the absolute horrors that have faced many who have sought to stand up for their rights there. That is why we now have 105 human rights sanctions against the Iranian regime. We must not forget the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people, in particular Iranian women. The hon. Gentleman spoke movingly about one such very brave leader who stood up for her rights and was subjected to extreme hardship by the Iranians as a consequence.

We will continue not only to take action ourselves, but, alongside international partners, to lead efforts internationally to keep attention on these questions. We have called special sessions in the Human Rights Council to address the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran, and we have repeatedly taken advantage of our human rights ambassador to ensure that we use that forum to warn Iran not to seek to exploit this conflict to inflict further violence on its own people. We did so again on 16 June. Since this conflict began, I have summoned the Iranian ambassador to the United Kingdom on five occasions, most recently yesterday in response to our attribution of attacks in London to Iranian state-backed organisations. We will continue to hold the regime to account.

Let me once again underline this Government’s commitment to tackling the Iranian threat, however and wherever it manifests itself. Having been the Minister with responsibility for the middle east for two years, I want to place on record my thanks—which I am sure are shared by the House—not just to our armed forces personnel in the region, but to the many members of the diplomatic service, including those in Tehran, and those in a range of other places which are not easy to be in, often for long periods of time and often in circumstances of great uncertainty. I come to this House always armed with their insights and their wisdom, and their relentless efforts to see a resolution in the region in accordance with the wishes of this House, and I am grateful for the opportunity to pass on my thanks.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Iran.