Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Debate between Tulip Siddiq and Charles Walker(3 years ago)
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Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
If Members have intervened on the hon. Lady already, please do not do so again. I think the hon. Lady was going to give way to Mr MacNeil and then Ms Vaz.
Tulip Siddiq
I absolutely agree. I will ask the Minister a series of questions, and then I know that there are lots of hon. Members who want to speak.
Why will the Government not acknowledge that Nazanin is a hostage, and challenge Iran’s hostage-taking with sanctions or legal action? Will the Minister set out exactly what practical and legal issues he believes stand in the way of resolving the International Military Services debt, so that these can be properly scrutinised? The Government have long accepted that they owe the debt as a matter of international law. Do the Government think that they are entitled to ignore their legal obligations and the rule of law? Have the Government made a specific offer to Iran to discharge the debt through humanitarian assistance, such as the provision of medicine? Have the Government sought or received assurance from the US, in the form of a comfort letter, that no bank will be sanctioned or fined for facilitating the payment of the debt? Finally, a Foreign Office Minister, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, said in the Lords yesterday that,
“were the Government to pay hundreds of millions of pounds to the Iranian Government, that would undoubtedly be seen as payment for a hostage situation.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 November 2021; Vol. 816, c. 18.]
Is that the view of the Government?
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Colleagues, many of you are not going to get called. I will give those I do call three minutes, but if you speak for less, more people will get in. Please stop taking photographs; you know that you are not meant to take photographs.