Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateSteve McCabe
Main Page: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)Department Debates - View all Steve McCabe's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(1 year, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberI will try to keep this brief, Mr Speaker.
Since our last oral questions, we have continued to stand up against Russian aggression. We have provided Ukraine with further political, military and humanitarian support. We established a sanctions directorate in the FCDO, doubling the number of staff we have working, to ratchet up the economic pressure on Putin’s regime. As we heard, we have committed to a £15 million package of support for Pakistan following the devastating floods that have hit the country. In addition, I co-chaired the UK-ASEAN ministerial meeting as an official dialogue partner, where we agreed a joint plan of action for the next five years.
Further to the comments from the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), it is two years since the introduction of the Magnitsky legislation, which was designed to deal with designated persons guilty of human rights violations and other serious offences. Given the continuing abuses in Iran, why has that not been used against a single prison governor, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander or senior member of the regime, and when will that be remedied?
I am afraid that I cannot speculate about future sanction designations, but as I said in answer to an earlier question, we maintain a range of sanctions that work to constrain the destabilising activity of the IRGC.