Points of Order

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I feel sure that we will return to both issues erelong, if the hon. Gentleman’s legendary indefatigability does not desert him in the weeks and months ahead—it will not, and therefore we will hear more on those subjects.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Most Members have served under you for a lot longer than I have, but it would be remiss of me not to thank you now for supporting me at a time when my life was in danger. I will not go into the details, but I wanted to thank you for providing me with a lot of protection during a very dark hour in my life. While we are talking about life and death, I also want to thank you for supporting my constituent Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe by giving her case a lot of priority in the House, by granting urgent questions and allowing debates to come forward. Most importantly, you went to see Richard Ratcliffe when he was on hunger strike outside the Iranian embassy, and you also saved his life at the time. Throughout your career you have looked after Parliament and democracy, but along the way you have also saved lots of lives, which people might not know about.

[Mr Speaker]

I appreciate what the hon. Lady has said. I had not met Richard Ratcliffe before. Visiting him and spending a little time with him was an honour, as anyone who has met him will know. He is a quite remarkable human being. The sooner that Nazanin is freed so that she can be reunited with her daughter, husband and wider family, so much the better. It is intolerable beyond words that she has been denied her freedom by an act of dictatorial barbarity. We will go on and on about this for as long as it takes for humanity to prevail over barbarism. It would be good if this message was repeated much more widely, and not just in this place by conscientious politicians but in parts of the media that, frankly, are not terribly interested—it is about time, if they have any sort of moral compass, that they took an interest.