Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Programme

Debate between Philip Hollobone and James Clappison

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, and I enjoyed our joint visit to Gaza. He and I agree on many issues involving the Palestinian Authority and Israel. We can certainly agree that the situation must be resolved quickly and that the current US-led negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians offer perhaps the best chance of resolving those issues since the state of Israel was founded.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hollobone]

I will happily give way. In answering this intervention, I will also try to tackle the previous intervention.

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[Mr Clappison]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he not agree that Iran has shown ample evidence of its hostility towards a peaceful solution to the situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis and that Iran’s aggression is in fact directed towards the existence of Israel?

[Mr Hollobone]

I agree with my hon. Friend that Iran has said some unfriendly and unpleasant things about the state of Israel and its right to exist, which he and I and most Members totally abhor. The question in the previous intervention was whether Israel’s possession of a nuclear weapon was not a big issue in itself. Of course it is, but the whole Israeli mindset has to do with defending Israel’s people, not projecting aggression elsewhere.

I know that the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) is looking at me quizzically because he will not agree with much of that, but the perspective of the state of Israel is that the Jewish diaspora throughout the world, but mainly in eastern and western Europe, suffered the horrors of the holocaust, and out of that was born the state of Israel. He and I and others can agree or disagree about that history, but the fact is that half the present world’s Jewish population lives in the state of Israel, and they have found nowhere safe in the world throughout the history of the Jewish people. The state of Israel now offers the best chance for Jewish people to live in peace. They have developed a nuclear weapon or weapons because they want to defend themselves. They do not want to deploy that weapon against anyone else; they just want to be left in peace.

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[Mr Hollobone]

The right hon. Gentleman’s powerful intervention is absolutely right. I hope the Foreign Office is better informed than I am and can give us the statistics. I am not sure, however, whether sanctions have brought the Iranians to the table; I do not know. It might well be that that is nothing to do with sanctions, but is all a ruse for Iran to buy diplomatic cover. What do I mean by that? If Iran can be seen to engage with the P5+1, it makes it much more difficult for the Israelis to take out Iran’s nuclear programme with military strikes. That is the point of the rapprochement.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that any agreement, interim or full, that allows the Iranians to retain their capability to make a weapon—perhaps not now, but in the future—would be a bad deal that was not worth having. From the perspective of Israel and Saudi Arabia, and I hope ours, any capability left in Iran that enables the regime or a future one to develop nuclear warheads should be completely unacceptable.

Iran currently has all sorts of capability. The centrifuge capability has recently been beefed up, with IR-2 centrifuges that can enrich uranium five times faster than the old ones. There is the heavy water production plant at Arak, which nuclear inspectors have never been allowed inside. There is a facility at Fordow that is underground for one reason—so that nobody can get to it. There is also the centrifuge capability at Natanz.

[Mr Clappison]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case about the multiple avenues Iran has to achieving to a nuclear capability, which are in addition to the Iranian regime’s history of stalling, lies and concealment. Would he welcome a statement from the Minister that the Government and the international community will be rigorous and exacting in their approach to the regime and will leave it nowhere near the threshold of obtaining a nuclear capability?

[Mr Hollobone]

I would welcome such a reassurance, but I am also looking forward to hearing my hon. Friend’s speech. I will soon sit down, because I have already spoken for far too long. Almost every Member present is more qualified to speak on these issues than me, and I am interested to hear what they say.

It seems to me that we face in Iran a country that wants to develop a nuclear warhead and that is mad and bad enough, either now or at some point, to have a high likelihood of deploying such a weapon. I do not believe that that is fanciful talk; I think it is a definite prospect, about which we should be very worried. In the next six months or so, we have a chance to negotiate a proper deal that will put Iran’s chances of making a nuclear weapon out of reach and give Israel, Saudi Arabia and every other country in the region the security they need, as we look forward to what I hope will prove to be a much more peaceful century around the world than the last one.