Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risks associated with the Iranian trade in arms following the expiration of the UN Security Council arms embargo on Iran in October.

The UK remains committed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), a reciprocal deal that lifts sanctions in exchange for tough nuclear limits. Iran has broken the nuclear limits in the JCPoA and we are working to bring Iran back into compliance through the deal's Dispute Resolution Mechanism.

UNSCR 2231, which underpins the JCPoA, includes a number of clauses designed to allow sanctions to expire on fixed dates: the UN conventional arms embargo is due to expire in October 2020. We have repeatedly set out concerns about Iranian destabilising behaviour, including proliferation to non-state actors. We are consulting partners on the broader implications of the UN arms embargo expiry and encourage all states to implement national export control best practice.

As part of those consultations, we are taking into account sanctions regimes that will remain in place after the arms embargo expires, such as UNSCRs 1540, 1701 and 2216, which prohibit the proliferation of weapons to Lebanese Hizballah and the Houthis. The EU arms embargo and UN ballistic missile restrictions on Iran will also remain in place until 2023. Separate to sanctions in place under the JCPoA, there is an EU Iran human rights sanctions regime. It places trade restrictions on specified goods and technology which may be used to repress the civilian population of Iran and on specified goods and technology which may be used for interception and monitoring services in Iran. These EU trade restrictions do not have an expiry date.