Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

1. What steps her Department plans to take to counter Iran’s destabilising use of proxies in the middle east.

[The Minister for Asia and the Middle East (Amanda Milling)]

I am sure that the whole House will accept the apologies from the Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who is otherwise engaged today.

The UK maintains a range of sanctions to constrain Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps malign activity. Maritime interdictions in January and February 2022 led to the seizure of advanced conventional weapons travelling from Iran to the Houthis in Yemen. We support the strengthening of state institutions in Iraq and Lebanon, and work to end the conflict in Yemen and Syria.

[John Spellar]

Mr Speaker, you may recall that it was against considerable Whitehall resistance—it needed pressure from this House—that we got the Government to ban Hezbollah. I hope that the Minister will be more receptive to recognising that the IRGC is at the heart of destabilising proxy wars across the middle east and further afield, and that she will show more urgency in joining our allies in the United States in proscribing the IRGC.

[Amanda Milling]

The UK maintains a range of sanctions that work to constrain the destabilising activity of the IRGC. The list of proscribed organisations is kept under constant review, but we do not routinely comment on whether an organisation is under consideration for proscription.