Oral Answers to Questions

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

With the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend, I believe that I did answer that question last Monday, or whenever it was—possibly last Wednesday as well. I will repeat for the benefit of the House that as soon as all the inquiries are concluded I will immediately publish in full whatever Sue Gray gives me.

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

Q12. I understand that the UK Government signed an agreement with the Iranian authorities last summer that would have resulted in the payment of the £400 million that we owe Iran and the release of my constituent Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. That agreement fell through and the debt still has not been paid. The case urgently needs the Prime Minister’s attention and personal intervention, so may I ask the Prime Minister to meet personally with me and Richard Ratcliffe? I do not want to meet his colleagues; I want to meet him personally to find out why the agreement fell through and why Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is still not home after six long years.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question and for all the hard work she does on behalf of Nazanin. We remain committed to securing the release of Nazanin and all the very difficult consular cases that we have in Iran. As the hon. Lady knows, the International Military Services, or IMS, debt is difficult to settle and square away for all sorts of reasons to do with sanctions, but we will continue to work on it and I will certainly make sure that we have another meeting with Richard Ratcliffe in due course.