Iran

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She raises a very important point. The reality is that the international norms that reflect, recognise and call for the safeguarding of peaceful protest apply across the board. We do make those points to our Iranian partners, but, of course, there is a very clear obligation under the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations about the way that ambassadors and diplomatic staff are treated. This is crucial, not least because if we cannot have confidence that our diplomatic staff and missions are respected, we cannot engage in the kind of diplomacy that we need to charter a peaceful way forward.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Sir Iain Duncan Smith. [Interruption.] Sir Iain?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Sorry, I did not hear you, Mr Speaker. I will not give up that opportunity.

First, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) on securing this urgent question, and my right hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box on his calm and reassuring manner throughout this period? Notwithstanding that, I would like to ask a question. From the moment that we negotiated that deal and the west offered an olive branch to Iran, our expectations have never really been met. Iran shows the face that it wishes to show to the west, but underneath it, it has gone on not de-escalating, but escalating the violence. Whether it is in Syria, all the way down to the Houthis, it has done nothing else but use its money to provoke violence and escalate trouble and war. My question to my right hon. Friend is this: at which point do we really get the idea that this regime is not displaying a peaceful nature and is not going to give up on any of its opportunities and that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, like many others, is being held as a hostage? When do we decide that, actually, the people of Iran do not want this organisation any more and that we want to support them?