Execution of Alireza Akbari

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, it is not normal practice when nationals go to a particular country to make their dual nationality known, and certain dual nationals who are currently resident in Iran may not have made that known. The risks to any dual national are now abundantly clear. The noble Lord talked of Alireza Akbari’s return and, as I said, many who have a particular heritage, who were born in a particular country or who have an association with a particular nation, may feel that there is perhaps a positive role that they can play in changing the trajectory of travel of that country. I am sure there are many noble-intentioned British people with Iranian heritage who think exactly that.

Yet it is very clear that the regime—forget respecting or valuing that—has no intention whatever of leveraging that opportunity to bring itself back to a form of respect from the international community. I can tell the noble Lord that all matters were discussed with our ambassador, including welfare, because the first important duty of any Government or embassy is the welfare of its citizens. Anyone who is a dual national, as Mr Akbari was, is regarded as a British national.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and many others said. I welcome the tone of my noble friend’s replies and we are all very much in debt for the responsible way in which he approaches his very onerous duties. But this is an evil regime, presiding over good people in a beautiful country. We must surely be able to do something beyond what we have already done, which has had very little effect, to show that this is a pariah state that has no place within the United Nations. Should we not begin by severing diplomatic relations ourselves?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his kind remarks but, on the actions we have taken, even in the last three months an additional 40 individuals or organisations have been directly sanctioned by the United Kingdom Government. As I alluded to earlier, in reply to the noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Purvis, we do this in conjunction with our key partners and allies, including the European Union, the United States, Canada and others.

My noble friend also raised the issue of what more can be done. While we have been acting decisively—about 300 individuals and organisations have now been sanctioned—we have also acted at the United Nations. I thank my noble friend Lord Polak for his comments on the UN Commission on the Status of Women; talk about a total and utter contradiction of representation to have Iran sitting on the CSW. We acted with our American partners and this demonstrated to me—here I commend your Lordships’ House—that, although it is sometimes not recognised—that issues raised here have a direct consequence on British policy and, more importantly, on the actions we take. That is one such example of recent action we have taken to send a very strong message to Iran that its actions will not be tolerated and, equally and importantly, working in conjunction with the international community.