Lord Walney
Main Page: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Walney's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend knows that it is the position of this Government and the previous Government that we stand by the JCPOA, not because it is the perfect deal but because it is the best credible alternative. At the same time, it is absolutely right—this is accepted by President Macron as well as President Trump—that we should work for a better and more sustainable deal not only on the nuclear issue but on the wider destabilising activities that Iran is engaged in and that the Aramco attacks highlight the significance of.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)
A number of my colleagues and I were able to visit Saudi Arabia this week and see the Abqaiq facility, and to be in absolutely no doubt that the very precise damage that was done to it was conducted by the Iranians. We will shortly update the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on that visit. Can the Secretary of State now assure us from the Dispatch Box that there is no question that the bad behaviour of the Iranians will be rewarded and that we should be looking to be in step with the United States at this vital time?
Dominic Raab
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s close interest in this. I think there is no doubt—or very little doubt; we are close to certainty—that Iran was responsible. It is implausible and lacking in credibility to suggest that the attacks came from the Houthi rebels. We certainly will co-ordinate with the United States as our closest military and security ally, but, as I have said, we need to send the broadest international response and signal to Iran if we are going to have the greatest impact on its behaviour in the future, because Iran is relying on splitting and splintering the west, and indeed the other countries that it will fall back on and try to engage in partnership and alliance with as its isolation increases. We want to de-escalate, and the best way of achieving that effectively is to have the broadest international support with that goal in mind.