Iran (UK Foreign Policy)

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bellingham]

That is very interesting. On the one hand, this financial blackmail is taking place against various UK banks, but on the other, the US is trying to encourage and facilitate trade. This does need looking at, and I hope that the Minister will comment on it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I help a little bit? We still have another debate to follow this, and a lot of Members to get in. I was hoping that I would not have to put on a time limit, but we are in danger of stretching that approach.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. So many points are being raised that I might not have time to cover them all.

My hon. Friend is aware that we are discouraging all trade with Iran because there is the bigger issue of trying to affect behaviour. That does not mean that we do not consider what trade can take place. Companies, including banks, are allowed to trade now within the confines of the sanctions that take place. I will certainly look at the banking issue, as he asks, but we are discouraging—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I will not have the Minister give his speech now. Interventions have to be short. You are knocking your own time off, and I do not want that. We have to be considerate to all the other Members who wish to speak in this debate, and, quite rightly, I want to hear them. I do not understand why they must have a reduced amount of time because people are taking advantage.

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[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I should like to use the opportunity of this debate to raise the case of my constituent, Ghoncheh Ghavami, who has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham). I think the case will be familiar to Members. A young woman—a British citizen— has been in prison in Tehran since the end of June for joining a group of women who wished to attend a volleyball match. I intend perhaps to be slightly less than forthright in speaking about this case because of its sensitivities. I will limit what I say to what is the public arena and to what I would like the Minister to respond to as regards the Foreign Office’s role.

As I say, I think the facts are relatively well known. Ms Ghavami was arrested on 20 June, released, and then rearrested 10 days later. She is charged with, and has now apparently been sentenced for, the offence of spreading propaganda against the system, but that arises out of the incident I described. She has been in solitary confinement. She has been on one hunger strike and is now on a second, more severe, hunger strike. There have been allegations of mistreatment against her during this period. She is a young woman of 25—a very bright law student with joint British-Iranian nationality who is resident, when she is the United Kingdom, in Shepherd’s Bush in my constituency with her brother. Her parents are resident in Tehran. A substantial amount of attention has been devoted to this case. The family, as one would expect, have acted in every possible way to try to secure her release, including lobbying the Iranian President in New York and lobbying and meeting members of the UK Government. Her family in Iran are doing the best they can. A petition calling for her release currently has more than 700,000 signatures.

I am not going to dwell too much on this aspect, but, for the record, I say to the Minister that I have not been impressed by the way in which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has dealt with the matter thus far. I think it uncharacteristic of the Minister to take three weeks to reply to a letter, to send that letter by post, and to say that because of the Data Protection Act he will not go into details without Ms Ghavami’s “express permission”. I am not quite sure how I was supposed to obtain Ms Ghavami’s express permission. However, during the course of this debate I have received a letter from the Foreign Secretary admitting that that was the wrong approach and saying that there will be full co-operation with my office, and with the family, from now on. I will therefore say no more about it. I welcome what the Foreign Secretary has said to me in that letter. I do not intend to go into the detail of it.

[Mr Ellwood]

I tried to catch the hon. Gentleman’s eye before the debate, and I am sorry that I was unable to do so. I am aware that we have had correspondence on this issue and that he is concerned about the latest correspondence I sent to him. If we can have a meeting about the case, I will be delighted to go into more detail.

[Mr Slaughter]

I am grateful to the Minister.

I think it appropriate that the House’s attention be drawn to this matter. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has tabled an early-day motion on it. It is a serious matter, not just to me as a constituency issue, but in that a British citizen is being treated in this way abroad. These matters can be better dealt with. I welcome the fact that the Minister is prepared to meet me and the family—that would be the right way forward.

I conclude by putting it on the record that the family have been clear throughout that this is not a political issue but a humanitarian one. It should not be tied up with wider geopolitical negotiations between the two Governments. The only relevance of that is that the thaw in the relationship—the more constructive relationship —between the two Governments should perhaps provide the opportunity for the early release of Ms Ghavami so that she can return to her life in the UK.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

I agree with the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) that this has been a genuinely thoughtful and provocative debate. The hon. Gentleman also reminded us of what the Labour Government have done in the past. I pay tribute to them for that work, and pay particular tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who has lived and breathed this subject for many years. I know that he is departing the House at the next general election. He will be sorely missed, given the knowledge that he brings to debates on this issue.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) on securing the debate. I welcome the contributions made by Members in all parts of the House, and will do my best to cover the main themes that arose. Both the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend observed that Iran is a land of which many of us know too little; I hope that the debate has partly rectified that.

The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), spoke of the duality of the country. There is youth and an educated nation there, but there is also the darker, proxy influence that Iran has on the region. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) raised a number of important issues, including the storming of the embassy, the importance of trade, and the problems encountered by Standard Chartered. I should explain that any bank that chooses to trade or work with Iran and trades in dollars will be subject to United States law, which is why Standard Chartered encountered those problems.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) referred to an important consular case which was mentioned by a number of other Members: that of Ms Ghoncheh Ghavami. I have discussed it with the hon. Gentleman. The Foreign Office is very much involved, and I should welcome the opportunity to meet him later in the week to talk about that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) mentioned Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities. We must consider its ability to create not just a nuclear weapon but the delivery platform for it. That must not be forgotten when the negotiations recommence.

The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) spoke of the importance of reopening our embassy. I recall that, during Foreign Office questions in July, I expressed a hope to go to Tehran and do that very thing. I remember the date that had been earmarked—12 August—because it was my birthday. Sadly, for reasons that I shall go into later, that did not happen, but we will persevere.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) drew attention to the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, which is greatly welcomed, and to the breach of serious United Nations resolutions. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) spoke of the importance of access for the IAEA at Parchin and various other sites, and the importance of striking the right deal. He emphasised that we must downsize or reach an accommodation, but must ensure that the deal is appropriate for the international community. The hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) spoke about Iran’s human rights record, which was mentioned by a number of other Members, and about the power of the Supreme Leader in the country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) placed the challenges faced in respect of Iran in the context of other recent international engagements, which he has mentioned once or twice in the Chamber before—he is certainly consistent in that—and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) talked about empowering the elected Government and the complications of comparing them with our own Government here, and also the complexities of the power bases in Iran. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) posed the fundamental question: can Iran be trusted? That is what this debate is all about: what role does Iran wish to play within its own borders, in the region and, indeed, in the world?

I am sure my hon. Friends will agree that we face many daunting challenges in the middle east. There are those who say those challenges are shared by Iran, and that it is high time the international community put aside our differences and found ways to work with Iran to resolve them. There is, of course, much truth in this: it is not in Iran’s interests for sectarian tensions in the region to worsen, and we all face common threats from ISIL.

We should also not forget Iran’s history. It is a significant regional power with a proud and ancient culture, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn highlighted. Iran has been a significant regional power for over 3,000 years and has a deep, rich and diverse history going back to the birth of civilisation. The magnificence of Persepolis, the beauty of Isfahan, the Cyrus cylinder and the lyricism of its poetry are just a few of the many examples of Iran’s contribution to world heritage over the centuries, and Persian culture and thought have rightly had an enduring influence on the west, and we are very much the richer for it.

However, we would like to see Iran playing a more constructive role in the region, aligning its activities with the international community’s efforts to tackle ISIL and achieve a peaceful solution in Syria. We must also recognise that there remains great distrust in the region over Iran’s intentions, however, and that real progress will require a change in Iran’s behaviour. Genuine progress will require a transformation in the nature of Iran’s relationship with its neighbours and the world, and the key to that is a resolution to the nuclear issue.

The current Iranian Government recognise that it is in Iran’s interests to reach a nuclear agreement. It is for that reason that we have pursued nuclear negotiations over the past year with professionalism and in good faith, despite the many challenges. I very much hope that we will soon be able to say that nuclear negotiations have succeeded. We remain committed to reaching a comprehensive nuclear agreement. It is right that we should leave no stone unturned in the quest to do so, but we must not, and will not, do a bad deal. The stakes are too high.

I pay tribute to the commitment and expertise of the nuclear negotiators, both on the Iranian side and in the E3 plus 3. Without them, we would not have made the unprecedented progress that we have to date, but there is a long way still to go. Iran needs to recognise that it must take meaningful steps to roll back its nuclear programme, including reducing its enrichment capacity, in order to gain substantial sanctions relief. That is the trade-off at the core of the negotiations—negotiations which, I can tell the House, will begin in Oman next week.

A number of Members have mentioned the issue of the opening of the embassy. We announced in June our intention to reopen the British embassy in Tehran and have been engaging intensively with the Iranian authorities since then on the practicalities. We want to see the UK and Iran have functioning embassies in each other’s capitals. This does not mean that we suddenly agree on everything—there will continue to be areas where we sharply disagree—but reopened embassies will better equip us to address these challenges as well as the range of areas where our interests coincide, a point eloquently made by the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Embassies are also vital in enabling greater links between the people of our two countries.

However, there are currently two outstanding issues that must be resolved before we can reopen our embassy: first, repairing the damage caused by the mob invasion of our embassy in November 2011; and, secondly, the issue of visa services.

[Mr Bellingham]

Will the Minister also note that a great deal of damage was done to works of art? The fire did a huge amount of damage, and this is not just a question of repair; it is also a question of paying for all those works of art and other bits and pieces that were destroyed or damaged.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is right to raise these matters. The mob that came through was essentially let through by the security guards who were supposed to protect the embassy. We must pursue both the security and the repayment issues before reopening the embassy.

The second issue is about visa services. We and the Iranian Government agree on the importance of visa services resuming in capitals as soon as possible after embassies reopen. Visas are an important issue for the large number of Iranian citizens who wish to visit the UK but who currently must travel to Abu Dhabi or Istanbul to obtain them. Restoring a visa service in Tehran is important both as a key component of normal embassy business and for the broader UK-Iran bilateral relationship. A future UK visa service in Tehran must be able to operate effectively and within the framework of Iranian law, while also meeting broader UK immigration objectives. In particular, we need to address the problem of individuals with no legal right to remain in the UK.

Both these issues are essential to the British embassy’s ability to function effectively in Tehran, and we hope we can reach agreement with the Iranian authorities soon, so that our plans for the embassy can progress.

[Mr Straw]

As the Minister knows, I am absolutely with him and the Foreign Secretary on the issue of our being able to re-equip the embassy. On the visa service issue, however, does he understand the high suspicion that exists that our foreign policy is, to a degree, being blocked by the Home Office, and that what the Home Office is demanding is evidence of a greater willingness to allow returns than was the practice when we did have an embassy, and than is the practice in respect of other countries that are more difficult than Iran over the question of returns, including of foreign national prisoners?

[Mr Ellwood]

I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says. The fact that there are other challenges with other countries in respect of these issues should not prevent us from trying to strike the appropriate deal when opening these embassies, but I take on board his point.

Both the issues I referred to earlier are essential to the British embassy’s ability to function effectively in Tehran, and we hope we can reach agreement with the Iranian authorities as soon as possible.

[Guy Opperman]

On the two points that have just been made, I would slightly question the line put forward that one cannot open an embassy until one has resolved on the one hand the visa arrangements, which surely are a matter of negotiation over a period of time, and on the other hand payment of reparations and past difficulties. I suggest that what is important is that the embassy reopens, while at the same time negotiations take place to resolve the two outstanding problems. The proposal at present is that those two problems would stop the matter proceeding, and without the embassy reopening, there will be problems.

[Mr Ellwood]

If the visa situation were to be resolved, the embassy would still not open straight away. There are certain Vienna convention conditions that still need to be met. I cannot say more than that, but until that happens we will not be able to reopen our embassy.

On trade and sanctions, it is important to remember that economic pressure has been the key to bringing Iran back to the negotiating table, enabling us to pursue a peaceful solution to one of the most thorny national security challenges of our time. That pressure has been achieved through sanctions as well as through broader reductions in trade, driven by assessments made by companies and banks that trading with Iran carries risks. Weakening that economic pressure risks undermining prospects for a nuclear agreement, and that is why we do not currently encourage trade with Iran.

That is also why we support US sanctions, which are closely aligned with EU sanctions and form a core part of the international sanctions regime. US secondary sanctions, which influence companies’ commercial decisions over whether to trade with Iran, have had some of the highest impacts of all economic sanctions, particularly in reducing Iranian oil exports. I do not agree that such sanctions are designed to bolster US trade with Iran at the expense of UK and EU trade. In response to the right hon. Member for Blackburn’s point, EU trade with Iran at the moment is higher than that of the US—

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Mr Ellwood]

I knew the right hon. Gentleman would want to come back on that. In certain areas, such as agriculture, there has been an increase, but the amount of EU trade with Iran is 40 times higher than that between the US and Iran.

[Mr Straw]

The truth is that EU trade with Iran has more than halved overall, and ours has absolutely plummeted. Meanwhile, from a base of close to zero 10 years ago, the United States has been pushing up its trade in a straightforward, ruthless and mercantilist way. It has not allowed diplomatic niceties to get in the way when its trade is legal, but it has discouraged legal trade by UK entities.

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Gentleman’s point is well made. I note that a Europe-Iran trade forum took place here in London in October. Representatives of the Foreign Office attended it, but we did not endorse it as such. However, that shows that trade is taking place. As I mentioned in response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk, we are trying to affect behaviour. If we continue to encourage trade before we have reached a nuclear deal, we will undermine our influence in that regard.

[Ms Abbott]

Would Her Majesty’s Government support the imposition of further US sanctions against Iran?

[Mr Ellwood]

At the moment, our focus is on recommencing the nuclear negotiations. When we know their outcome, we will be in a better position to decide whether more sanctions should be introduced or whether they should be changed in response to what Iran does.

I shall turn now to Iranian regional activities and ISIL. Iran is an important actor in the middle east. We all, including Iran, face challenges from extremist forces across the region, including ISIL. Those forces are a direct threat to regional stability and to the UK. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, we hope that Iran will choose this moment to engage constructively with the international community in the face of shared threats. We welcome the support that the Iranian Government have given to the new Government of Iraq and to their efforts to promote more inclusive governance for all Iraqis. A similar approach is needed in Syria, to promote a transition to a new Government capable of representing all Syrians. Nevertheless, there continue to be many areas of Iranian foreign policy on which we sharply disagree, particularly Iran’s ongoing support for the Assad regime and its ongoing support to militant groups in the region.

Human rights is a subject that many hon. Members have mentioned today. Iran’s human rights record remains a cause of great concern. The UK opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and we are deeply concerned by the sharp increase in executions in Iran over the past year. There continues to be widespread discrimination against minority religious groups, as well as ongoing reports of the harassment, interrogation and detention of journalists and human rights defenders. Access to the internet and freedom of expression continue to be significantly restricted.

President Rouhani has said that he would like to implement a range of social reforms and to improve the rights of all Iranian citizens. We welcome that. We also welcome positive steps such as the release of 18 human rights defenders in September 2013. However, we are clear that much more needs to be done to ensure that all Iranians enjoy the rights and freedoms they are entitled to. We will continue to urge the Iranian Government to make the urgent reforms needed to meet their international human rights obligations.

I agree with the sentiments expressed in the House that we are at a moment of historic opportunity to resolve the Iranian nuclear question and for Iran to forge a more productive relationship with the international community. Iran is an important regional power with a proud history. It is a significant player in the middle east, which is a crucial region for UK interests. It is important that we have a relationship with Iran that allows us to discuss areas where our interests might overlap, as well as the numerous areas where we continue to disagree, including Iran’s ongoing support for the Assad regime in Syria, and human rights, about which we have serious concerns. Reopened embassies will be an important step on that road.

The importance of the nuclear issue means that it must stand on its own, distinct from other considerations, whether regionally or in our bilateral relationship. The UK is committed to exploring every opportunity to reach an agreement that meets our proliferation concerns. But success in the nuclear negotiations could open up the possibility of a transformed relationship between Iran and the rest of the world, which would have enormous benefits for security and prosperity in the middle east. Progress on all these fronts is therefore essential. The Government will continue to work creatively to find solutions, but we must do so with a clear eye on the UK national interest.