Iran: British-Iranian Prisoners

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s last point, in one or two cases we have received information for added diplomatic protection and we are looking at that issue. The noble Lord is right about the situation the Ratcliffe family continues to face and we are making that case consistently. There are, at least, some small glimmers: Nazanin remains out of detention and her ankle tag has been removed. On the long-standing debt, we continue to explore options to resolve this case, but I do not want to go into details here, and nor do we attach the two issues specifically.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, this brutal regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps kidnaps and imprisons British citizens, has an appalling record on human rights and exports terror and extremism across the Middle East, including providing thousands of rockets for Hamas to rain down on Israeli citizens. Will the Government use this week’s G7 to make the case for much tougher sanctions against the regime’s leadership? Will the UK proscribe the IRGC, as the US did in 2020 and which the Biden Administration have maintained?