US Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (British Foreign & Commercial Policy)

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I draw to the House’s attention that the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) and I are co-chairmen of the all-party group on Iran and that, in January, we were members of a parliamentary delegation to Iran.

This debate is not about the sanctions against Iran themselves, which the UK Government and Parliament have agreed to on an all-party basis; it is about the impact of US extraterritorial jurisdiction on British foreign and commercial policy. Its aim is to highlight the way in which US sanctions on Iran are in practice freezing out many services of UK-based banks and financial institutions, to prevent them and others from participating in commercial and trading activities with Iran that remain entirely lawful under the sanctions regimes of the UK, the EU, the UN and indeed the United States.

Here is the heart of the problem:

“humanitarian trade with Iran has always been permitted under both US and EU sanctions”.

I quote directly from a letter of 6 March to me from the Foreign Secretary. Such trade includes food and agricultural products, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and services. As the Foreign Secretary said in the same letter, however:

“many banks have been wary of processing the payments required. This has been driven in large part because of risk aversion to US banking sanctions”.

That risk aversion by banks based in the UK is entirely understandable. It is compounded by the fact that those banks cannot obtain greater certainty about the reaction of the US Government by looking at the black-letter text of the US sanctions regime. Nor, because they are non-US entities, do they enjoy any of the close connections that Washington DC offers big US corporations to obtain “comfort”, formal or informal, from the US Congress or Government. Rather, our financial institutions are subject to “guidance”, sometimes of an oral and confidential kind, from the US that, if they offer any banking services for any trades with Iran, they could find themselves in difficulties with the US authorities.

The pressure on our banks is intense. Most are so scared and so scarred that they will not provide banking services even where the trades are manifestly within the sanctions regime.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. The problem is illustrated by the fact that the Iranian chargé d’affaires, up to last month, could not even open a British bank account. May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman, while he is talking about commercial issues, that what is clearly wrong is when humanitarian aid itself is being stopped because of the inability to get bank facilities? Is he going to develop and explore that point?

[Mr Straw]

I am indeed and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I will show that, in practice, the impact of sanctions is much worse against British trading of all kinds and banks than against any other banking operations.

The impact of this unilateral extraterritorial jurisdiction of the US is especially discriminatory against UK-based financial institutions, because of their multinational nature. In contrast, for example, some German companies have banking services for their trade with Iran from a local Landesbank, which has no activity in the US. The US corporation Coca-Cola is able lawfully to sell its product in Iran and to use banking services for remittances by the Iranian franchise. A UK corporation in a similar situation would almost certainly find it far harder, if not impossible, to obtain such banking services here.

There is another example. For reasons of which the Minister is aware, I will not go into further details in public, but an Iranian entity in this country has seen all its banking services stopped, while an exactly similar Iranian entity operating in the United States has full access to the services of US banks.

The stark fact highlighted by the trade statistics is that the United Kingdom’s trade with Iran has been the hardest hit by far of any major European Union member, while, irony of ironies, US exports to Iran have scarcely been hit at all. As sanctions tightened, all EU countries saw their exports to Iran decline in the four years 2009 to 2012—in the EU as a whole, by 33.8%. But the United Kingdom’s exports in that period slumped by 73%, from $584 million to $159 million—the biggest fall by far. The US had the smallest fall, of just 11.3%, from $282 million to $250 million.

Let us go back to 2000. In contrast with the European Union as a whole and with Germany, France, Italy and the United States individually, the United Kingdom is the only nation whose exports to Iran were lower in 2012 than they were at the beginning of this century. In the United States’ case, a man from Mars might be forgiven for thinking that the United States had been on a modest export drive with Iran. Its exports in 2000 were worth $17 million; in 2012 they were worth $250 million; and they rose last year to $313 million.

The joint plan of action agreed between the E3 plus 3 and Iran, which came into force on 20 January, allows for some relaxation of the sanctions regime, but there is precious little evidence that that is making any significant difference for UK traders or banks, because of the threat, whether real or perceived, from the United States. This unacceptable situation is a direct challenge, I say to the Minister, to the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. It is one that the United States Congress and Government would not tolerate for a moment were the situation reversed, yet the British Government preside over a catastrophic decline in our exports that is not required by sanctions and has not been suffered by any other nation, and then retreat into claiming that they cannot interfere in the “commercial decisions” of UK-based banks.

However, the circumstances that our banks face have been created not by the banks’ own “commercial decisions”, but by the actions of the United States Government. I say, with respect, to the Minister that it is time for the British Government to make it crystal clear to the US that, although we are four-square behind sanctions that they and we have agreed, we will not tolerate any longer the US preventing trading that is lawful under those sanctions and that it is itself carrying out. Effectively, it is preventing our traders from carrying it out.

The Government already have on the statute book clear powers to take counter-action against the United States if they cannot negotiate a satisfactory way through by getting the United States Government and their agencies to change their behaviour. I am referring to the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980, passed, as I recall, with all-party support by the Government of Margaret Thatcher. Introducing the Bill, the then Secretary of State for Trade, John Nott, told the Commons that its purpose was

“to reassert and reinforce the defences of the United Kingdom”

against attempts by the United States

“to enforce their economic and commercial policies unilaterally on us”

by

“the most objectionable method”

of

“the extra-territorial application of domestic law.”—[Official Report, 15 November 1979; Vol. 973, c. 1533.]

The Bill was prompted by decisions of US anti-trust regulators against UK shipping firms. The British and all European Governments took exception to that gratuitous interference. By the Act, the British Secretary of State is given power to prohibit any United Kingdom entity from complying with any extraterritorial sanction by the United States. Indeed, the power under section 2 makes it a criminal offence here to comply with what the US is trying to impose on our banks. The Act worked. It was used again in 1992 in respect of Cuba. It was followed in 1996 by similar, EU-wide regulations, which I think the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North will explain in more detail in a moment.

Ministers do not have to be frozen, blinking in the headlights of this unacceptable practice by the United States Government, which is inhibiting the lawful activity of British banks and hindering the step-by-step restoration of bilateral relations with Iran. The Government have strong powers, bequeathed to them by Margaret Thatcher, to deal with this situation. If Ministers make it clear that Her Majesty’s Government will be ready to use those powers if needed, their hand in negotiations will be strengthened, and with luck their use will not be necessary and we should be able to restore our trade at least to the trend set by the United States itself.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this afternoon, Mr Davies. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) on securing this important debate and, as always, on the detailed, measured and articulate way in which he set out his case.

Before I get into the granularity of some of the issues that he raises, I want to set out Her Majesty’s Government’s wider approach to tackling extraterritoriality, because it is an important issue. The impacts of extraterritorial application of another country’s domestic laws on UK businesses can be significant and are not always easy to measure or to cost. British Governments of all colours—both the current Government and their predecessor—have maintained their opposition to over-broad assertions of extraterritorial civil jurisdiction, including when the right hon. Gentleman was Foreign Secretary.

It is not that the UK is averse to legislating to regulate extraterritorial activity; we have done so ourselves in certain cases that concerned the actions of British nationals abroad, the most obvious example of which is the Bribery Act 2010. However, the UK has always opposed the exertion of jurisdiction by a foreign country over British nationals or businesses that have little or no connection to that country. In such cases, we consider that the UK or the state on whose territory the activity occurred should rightfully exercise jurisdiction. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, that has principally been an issue with regard to the United States. He will be aware, I hope, that the United States Supreme Court is not immune to such arguments, and has stated that

“even where the claims touch and concern the territory of the United States, they must do so with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application.”

Successive British Governments have taken an interest in seeking to ensure that US courts do not try to exert jurisdiction over cases that have no substantial links to the United States. Indeed, we have submitted amicus briefs in a number of cases to the US Supreme Court under the so-called alien tort statute, and the right hon. Gentleman may well be aware of the most recent cases involving Rio Tinto and Shell.

It is important to reiterate the importance that the UK Government attach to sanctions. I know that there is cross-party support from Members, including the right hon. Gentleman, for those sanctions. They are an essential tool of foreign policy and provide a means of coercing changes in behaviour, constraining ability to continue to behave in a particular way and signalling collective opposition to the actions of certain states or individuals. It is still Her Majesty’s Government’s view that that is the case, as has been evidenced by the reaction to the events recently in Ukraine.

I turn to Iran, which was the main focus of the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks. The international community has applied significant pressure to the Iranian economy through sanctions, because of the international concerns surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme. International sanctions, particularly the stringent measures put in place in recent years by the US and the EU, have brought Iran back to the negotiating table. I believe that sanctions have, therefore, been proven to be a vital tool in our attempts to resolve the Iranian nuclear question through peaceful means. I will drill down into what that means with specific relation to Iran in a moment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) rightly raised the example of Cuba. In the case of Cuba, we and our EU partners have a very different view from the US on how best to engage. The US continues to impose a trade embargo and apply sanctions, but we do not feel that the US approach regarding sanctions is right and we have raised our objections with them. Clearly, however, US policy towards Cuba is a matter for the US authorities and not for the UK Government. Whereas British businesses and banks can trade freely with Cuba, the US has a sanctions regime. Companies must be fully aware of how their business is being transacted. Banks often use the US clearing systems—this goes right to the heart of the point my hon. Friend made—in which case they are subject to US laws. That is not extraterritorial application of the US-Cuban sanctions regime. We have made it clear for some time to British businesses that operate in Cuba that that is a risk that they should look to mitigate.

On the points the right hon. Member for Blackburn made about the impact of sanctions, it is important that the House understands the distinction between what is and what is not extraterritorial in nature. US sanctions impact on all businesses that operate through the US. Companies, including UK companies, that conduct business with sanctioned regimes must therefore ensure that, if their business goes through the US or there is a US link within the transactions, they comply with US law. That applies to Iran, Cuba and other regimes against which the US applies sanctions but the EU does not—for example, Sudan.

[Mr Straw]

I would like to make it clear that the principle of sanctions is not an issue; my concern is about their application. Does the Minister accept that, whichever way we look at the data, one cannot but come to the conclusion that United States practice and the way they pressure British banks is operating more harshly on our banks than on US banks and entities? That is the heart of the matter on which we want to see some action taken by the British Government.

[Mark Simmonds]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because it leads me on quite neatly to my next remarks. Before I move on, however, I must say that I do not think he can conflate the challenges that some UK banks have—we can come on to the specifics—with the whole range of issues that affect the bilateral trade relationship between the United Kingdom and Iran. For example, banks must consider other aspects in order to comply with regulatory authorities in the UK and the European Union, as well as in the US. Such considerations include anti-money laundering, concerns about counter-terrorism and all the other aspects that banks must consider when assessing risk and ensuring that they comply with the whole package of important regulatory regimes, US or otherwise.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to banks that have fallen foul of the US regime, but those cases concerned not extraterritorial sanctions but transactions that had a connection to US territory. The allegations were that the banks had directly violated US law by conducting business with Iran from the United States, and it is correct that those banks should respond to allegations that they have broken US regulations within US territory.

I want to move on to secondary or extraterritorial US sanctions, which are at the heart of the thrust of the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Along with the European Union, we have taken steps to protect UK companies from such extraterritorial jurisdiction. The key to our approach to Iran is that our sanctions are so closely aligned with those of the US that the scope for such jurisdictional conflict is small. As I mentioned, we recognise the importance of US and EU sanctions in bringing Iran to negotiations.

Ukraine

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I differ with my right hon. Friend a little bit on this. Russia gave Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 and followed that in the 1990s with a series of specific agreements, including the Budapest memorandum and the 1997 agreement on the Black sea bases, in which it forswore the use of armed force or intrusion on to the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia chose to do that and it must honour its international obligations.

I assure my right hon. Friend that it is not the ambition of the EU, or of the UK for the EU, to extend its borders to Mongolia. What we are talking about is not Ukrainian membership of the European Union, but free trade: a free trade agreement—an association agreement—between the EU and a country that freely chose to enter into negotiations about it. It should not be possible for any other country to have a veto over any nation choosing to do that.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I commend the work of the Foreign Secretary, and the wise approach of my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary? The Foreign Secretary will be aware that there is a very different narrative in Russia to justify actions that we all regard as completely unjustified. One issue on which the Russian Government have seized is the decision of the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, to seek to change the law guaranteeing regional languages, including Russian. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s commendation of the interim President’s veto of that law, but would it not be better to pressure the new interim Government into repealing the legislation altogether? As long as it remains on Ukraine’s statute book, it will be a running sore, and it will be used by the Russian Government as a means of justifying their intervention.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Just to be clear, the repeal of the law has not gone on to the statute book: the President vetoed it. However, I agree with the thrust of his question, which is that there may well be more that the Government can do to give assurances on that matter, and to make sure that they have language laws entirely satisfactory to all minorities in Ukraine. I put it to the Prime Minister yesterday that that should be one of the things they work on, and we will encourage the Government of Ukraine to do so.

Ukraine, Syria and Iran

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. Friend is right to call for visionary leadership to bring to an end the pervasive culture of corruption and the divisive politics. That is absolutely what is needed in this situation. It is also important for the EU nations and Russia to work together; that is one of the reasons why I have been talking to Foreign Minister Lavrov this afternoon. Incidentally, I did not respond to the shadow Foreign Secretary’s point on that matter. He emphasised, as I did on the telephone to Mr Lavrov, the importance of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and of the country staying together. It is important that all channels of communication between Russia and the EU should stay open and that we are able to support such a new vision.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the rapacious and endemic corruption in Ukraine is not confined to the regime of Mr Yanukovych, and that it has now spread and infected virtually the whole of Ukrainian society? We should be generous with financial aid, but it is absolutely right that we should insist on stringent conditionality. On Iran, I welcome the steps that the Foreign Secretary has taken. Will he tell us what steps the British Government are taking to implement the clear obligation in the 24 November agreement to designate certain banks and financial institutions in this country as facilitators of sanctions relief?

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman’s first point is absolutely right; that is the point that I was making a moment ago, and he might want to reinforce it to the shadow Foreign Secretary when he gets a chance. The word I used to describe the corruption was “pervasive”, and we have to be clear about the conditions attached to any financial support for Ukraine. On his question about banks, there are explicit exemptions under the EU sanctions for transactions made for humanitarian purposes and non-sanctioned purposes. There is no legal barrier to banks in the EU undertaking such transactions, but that is a commercial decision for them. I will look further at the point that the right hon. Gentleman has raised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As I mentioned a moment ago, it would be extremely welcome if there were other wider and constructive changes in the foreign policy of Iran. I intend to have a telephone discussion later today with the Foreign Minister of Iran, building on our recent contact. The United Kingdom is very much in favour of engagement with Iran, but we also need to see commitment from it. It was open to Iran yesterday to say that in the Geneva II process it would support the implementation of Geneva I, which every other country is in favour of and is seeking in the talks this week, but it was not able publicly to make that commitment.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I draw it to the House’s attention that I am co-chairman of the all-party group on Iran and was recently a guest of the Iranian Parliament on a parliamentary delegation?

I commend the work of the Foreign Secretary and welcome the progress that has been made, but will he take account of the fact that many of those in the current Administration in Iran felt, I think quite rightly, badly burned by their experiences of acting in good faith 10 years ago and finding that their best efforts were thwarted, in this case, by forces inside the United States. We must ensure that that does not happen again.

[Mr Hague]

Absolutely, we must take account of events 10 or 11 years ago and make sure that we give encouragement to those in Iran who are in favour of better relations with the west and with the region. That has been one of the arguments for proceeding quickly with an agreement on an interim deal. Indeed that was one of the reasons for urgency, apart from the advances of the Iranian nuclear programme, in coming to that deal, so I hope that we can now build on that, and we will make every effort to do so.

Syria

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Of course we work with the Russians. We discuss endlessly with the Russians, in any case, if there is any way in which we can together resolve the crisis. On chemical weapons, the permanent members of the UN Security Council, working together, have made the progress that we have described.

I think that my right hon. and learned Friend goes too far in saying that we have no clout with the Syrian opposition. What he says is not true, in that stark form, of the United States and the United Kingdom. I have many extensive discussions with the Syrian opposition. I was with the leadership of the Syrian National Coalition in Paris yesterday and they do listen carefully to what we say. They know, of course, that we have sent them assistance in the past. It is not the lethal assistance that my right hon. and learned Friend has consistently called for, but we have sent a great deal of other assistance to help to deal with chemical attacks and to save lives.

We have had to put on hold the delivery of that assistance because of what happened at the Bab al-Hawa border depot in December. To deliver assistance to the opposition we have to have confidence, and this House would expect us to have confidence, in its destination and in who will have control of it. We can resume and increase such assistance when we are satisfied on that point. That is of value to the opposition, and they are conscious of what the UK can do to provide that support.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I draw to the attention of the House the fact that, as co-chairman of the all-party group on Iran, I visited Tehran as a member of an all-party delegation last week at the invitation of the Iranian Parliament.

May I press the Foreign Secretary on the issue of Iran’s attendance at Geneva II? Iran was not present in June 2012, but the circumstances were very different, not least of which was that President Ahmadinejad was President of Iran at the time and not the much more moderate President, President Rouhani. Lakhdar Brahimi, the distinguished UN diplomat, has himself called for Iran to be allowed to attend Geneva II unconditionally. I plead with the Foreign Secretary to back Mr Brahimi, and to have a conversation with Mr Kerry who seems to be saying, according to news reports today, that the current Government in Iran have to sign up to a communiqué that is now 18 months old, Geneva I, and to which they were not a party and had no decision on whether to attend because they were not in that Government.

[Mr Hague]

The 30 June 2012 communiqué is 18 months old, but it is also the basis of the Secretary-General’s invitation letter to the participants in Geneva II issued on 6 January—last week. That is the basis on which we are going to Geneva II. The Geneva I communiqué is the basis of that letter: that is what we will be there to implement. Geneva I is not, therefore, just an old thing from some time ago when not everybody was there; it is the Secretary-General’s basis for the conference. It is therefore not asking too much to ask those who participate to express their support for that and their readiness to engage in a conference on that basis.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Government have changed in Iran, and what we have been able to do on the nuclear issue has changed in that time. Nevertheless, from everything we can see, the active support of the Iranians for the Assad regime, which is now carrying out some of the terrible crimes I have described, continues today, even with a change of Government in Iran. That is the background and we must not forget that. That is why we are putting the pressure on Iran to say, “If you want to come, show very clearly that you are going to engage on the same basis as the rest of us.”

Iran

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We are in constant touch with the Israeli Government. The Prime Minister discussed matters with Prime Minister Netanyahu during the negotiation of the agreement over the past few weeks. It is important to understand the concerns of those who are sceptical about any agreement on the grounds of Iran’s past deceptions. It is also important to ask those people what the alternative to the agreement would be. The alternatives would involve Iran getting to nuclear weapons threshold capability, Iran having a nuclear weapon, a conflict with Iran or all those things. We have to be clear that there are compelling arguments for the agreement. We would discourage anybody in the world, including Israel, from taking any steps that would undermine the agreement. We will make that very clear to all concerned.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I thank the Foreign Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) for their generous remarks? May I also, in turn, express my great appreciation and congratulations to the Foreign Secretary on the personal effort that he has put in to this negotiation? I recognise that the Iranians are among the toughest negotiators in the world and extract every last ounce from negotiations.

I hope that the Foreign Secretary accepts that it is crucial that the momentum is kept up. The agreements that we made between 2003 and 2006 were undermined not only by the difficulties in Tehran, but by a desperate Faustian pact that was developed between hard-liners in Tehran and hard-liners in Washington who fed off each other. That ended up with President Khatami being replaced by President Ahmadinejad. The United States helped to produce that situation.

Lastly, may I ask a question that follows on from the previous question? Will the Foreign Secretary make it clear to the Americans that if Prime Minister Netanyahu’s efforts at the United States Congress prevent President Obama from continuing with the negotiations, the UK, Germany, France and the EU will have to detach themselves from America and reach their own conclusions, along with other members of the P5?

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks and I agree very much about the importance of maintaining momentum. It was possible to see that even over the past two weeks. The 10-day gap between the negotiations that took place two weeks ago and those this weekend brought forth a great deal of criticism in Iran, in the US Congress and elsewhere in the world that could easily have fatally complicated the efforts to reach agreement. Considering the months of work that need to go into the implementation of this agreement and into attaining a comprehensive and final agreement, it is vital to maintain the momentum all the way.

The agreements that the United States has made can all be implemented by Executive order. That does not mean that the debates in Congress are over. What happens in the US Congress is up to the United States. However, the right hon. Gentleman can be assured that the United States Administration are extremely strongly committed to this process. The leadership and persistence of Secretary Kerry were crucial in bringing about the agreement and the clarity of President Obama on the matter is clear. I do not think that we need, at this point, to start looking at the other scenarios that the right hon. Gentleman brought in of acting separately from the United States.

Iran and Syria

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, My right hon. Friend is quite right that the sort of constructive meeting that came even close to an interim agreement at the weekend would have been hard to envisage a few months ago. That represents an important diplomatic advance. It is not, of course, good enough to have nearly got there; we have to really get there, but it is a big change in the atmosphere. My right hon. Friend is also right that we have many other difficulties with Iranian policies. I referred to those in my opening meetings with Mr Zarif. Certainly, our newly appointed non-resident chargé will be approaching all these issues across the full range of our relations.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I first thank the Foreign Secretary personally for the efforts that he has made to improve the bilateral relationship, which is crucial, both for our direct relations with Iran, but also in facilitating this kind of negotiation?

On the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), there is a danger, which I saw myself some years ago, that negotiations quite close to a deal lose momentum, and it is not only the hard-liners in Tehran who then get in on that, but, bluntly, those in Israel and in Washington, of both parties, and I think now in France, who start to undermine the pace and substance of those negotiations. May I offer the right hon. Gentleman full support, as my right hon. Friend has done, in resisting those clarion calls, for example from some elements in Israel, and some in Washington, which will have the effect of undermining the best chance that we have had for decades to secure a proper deal with Iran?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, we will remain very much committed. The right hon. Gentleman can hear from what I am saying that we are very committed to maintaining this momentum. It is a pity that we did not secure agreement on an interim agreement this weekend, because even losing 10 days implies some loss of momentum here. But as the right hon. Gentleman can gather, we will pick that up as quickly as we possibly can. We have scheduled another meeting immediately. It is important for everyone when they think about this to understand that the pressure is on all of us to reach an agreement—it is on Iran, because the sanctions are really biting and having a very serious impact on it, but it is on all of us if we want to see an agreement on this before the Iranian nuclear programme passes further very important stages in its development. We all have to bear that in mind. That means that an interim first step agreement is in the interests of the whole world.

Middle East Peace Process/Syria and Iran

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Accountability is very important. I make no secret of the fact that we would have preferred—as, I think, would most of this House—a UN resolution with more specific provisions for accountability, including reference to the International Criminal Court. It was very clear throughout all our talks in New York that no such resolution could be agreed with our Russian colleagues. Of course, it was important to pass a resolution on, and implement the destruction of, the chemical weapons, but we have had to do that without reference to the ICC. Future accountability will, therefore, depend on what happens more broadly with regard to the future of Syria and the determination of Syrians to hold those responsible to account in the future. I hope that they and all of us in the international community will be very clear that we wish to do that.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

First, while congratulating the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson) on his appointment, may I underline the respect for and tribute made to the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for the brilliant way in which he conducted himself as a Minister? I hope the fact that he was held in as high regard by the Opposition as he was by those on the Government Benches did not contribute to the Prime Minister’s decision yesterday.

The Foreign Secretary is right to say that Iran has a complex power structure and that we must proceed step-by-step with reciprocity. Does he accept that another country that has a complex power structure is the United States? President Obama is almost as boxed in as President Rouhani on this issue, while the Foreign Secretary has much greater room for manoeuvre. Will he therefore bear it in mind that the British Government are in a position to take calculated risks and to seize the opportunity with respect to Iran, while the other two may not be? He may be able to take the initiative on Iran, while others may not be able to do so.

[Mr Hague]

I will give a broad “yes” to the right hon. Gentleman’s question, but I ask him not to underestimate the focus on this issue in the United States or its readiness to deal directly with the new ministerial leaders in Iran. As he knows, President Obama had a telephone conversation with President Rouhani. Secretary Kerry attended the meeting of the E3 plus 3 Ministers with Mr Zarif, which was the first meeting between a US Secretary of State and an Iranian Foreign Minister for a very long time. The United States does have a complex power structure, but its National Security Council is very focused on this issue. It is important that the E3 plus 3 countries work cohesively on the nuclear issue, rather than emphasising different approaches. We must all in our different ways and using our different national strengths and perspectives on Iran encourage the progress in the nuclear negotiations that is so urgently needed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I mentioned a moment ago the conversations we have with Russian leaders. Whether they feel that as diplomatic pressure, we shall see. Russia has proved immune to what my hon. Friend and I would normally regard as diplomatic pressure when it has come to votes at the UN Security Council. The Russians are committed also to bringing about a Geneva peace conference, so we have to work on that common ground, but not only to bring about a peace conference, but to do it in circumstances where it has a chance of success, and that, of course, has been the most elusive thing so far.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the chances of success of any peace conference will be greatly enhanced if Iran is involved, and given the election of Dr Hassan Rouhani as President, will he say what extra efforts he has been making to reach out to the Iranian Government?

[Mr Hague]

The chances would be enhanced not necessarily by Iran being involved, but by Iran playing a constructive role in trying to bring about a settlement at such a peace conference. I think nearly all of us who participated in the first Geneva conference last year where Iran was not present came to the view that we could not even have reached the conclusion we did on the need for a transitional Government in Syria had Iran been there. So it depends on the role Iran is prepared to play. I had a conversation a few weeks ago with the outgoing Iranian Foreign Minister. I have offered to meet the new Iranian Foreign Minister during the UN General Assembly in New York, and we will, of course, be able to discuss these issues.

Middle East and North Africa

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Contrary to the distinguished, but dismal prognosis of the Father of the House, would the Secretary of State accept that across Africa remarkable progress has been made in recent decades to produce democracies? One thing that will set that back is if the west appears to be equivocal about the results of elections when it does not approve of those who are elected. This was a military coup, and we will gain nothing—indeed, we will undermine our influence—if we do not accept that. If we do not accept it, we will simply feed those extremists on the Islamic side who believe that we regard democracy as an optional extra only when those elected are people of whom we approve.

[Mr Hague]

I have a lot of sympathy with those points. Half of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world are now in Africa. There is economic success, and many democracies are becoming established, which is to be welcomed and respected. That is why I was clear last Wednesday night that the United Kingdom does not support military interventions in democratic politics. We should always be prepared to state that clearly, I think, and to state what I just said in response to the shadow Foreign Secretary: that the Muslim Brotherhood must not be driven out of democratic politics in Egypt, or any other country. I think that across the House we can uphold those things very strongly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

The special envoy, the former Prime Minister from the hon. Lady’s party, does not have to clear with the Foreign Secretary of the day everything he says. I am not sure he would ever have cleared it with the Foreign Secretary of his own Government—perhaps the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) can tell us—and he certainly does not clear it with the Foreign Secretary of the next Government, who are opposing parties to his. That would be hoping for too much. I put things differently from him, as she noted—

[Mr Straw]

So did I.

[Mr Hague]

So did the right hon. Gentleman, and so did several others from time to time.

We have to acknowledge that there was enormous dissatisfaction in Egypt with the record of the Government and therefore that what happened last week was very popular in Egypt. Nevertheless, we should be clear, as we discussed a few moments ago, that we cannot support military interventions in democratic processes.