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Back to Proliferation in Parliament, Spring 2009
1. Mr. David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): What recent reports he has received on Iran’s nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.
3. Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington and Chelsea) (Con): What his most recent assessment is of Iran’s nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (David Miliband): The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report of 19 February shows that Iran continues to refuse to suspend its proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities and has not granted the IAEA the access that it seeks as required by five UN Security Council resolutions. We, and the international community, will continue to press for Iran to fulfil its international obligations and restore confidence in its intentions.
Mr. Jones: Does the Secretary of State agree that while President Obama’s recent outreach to Iran is welcome, diplomatic overtures must be backed by a readiness on the part of the United States and the EU to impose such further sanctions as are necessary until such a time as Tehran can demonstrate to the unequivocal satisfaction of the UN inspectorate that it has abandoned its ambitions to develop a military nuclear capability?
David Miliband: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his enunciation of the policy, which I think has support across the House. It is the so-called dual-track policy, which is that we should seek to engage with Iran, that we should make it clear that we have no quarrel with the Iranian people and that the choice of Government in Iran should be a matter for them. However, whatever the Government in Iran, they need to abide by their international responsibilities. If they refuse to do so, there are costs associated with that decision.
The
hon. Gentleman is right that there are responsibilities on the EU and the US,
but the responsibilities go wider. The international coalition, which is right
to fear an Iranian nuclear weapons programme, goes wider than the EU and the
US. Russia, China and the Gulf states
have responsibilities, too, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want
to join me in working to ensure that they are part of a global coalition against
an Iranian nuclear weapons programme.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind: With North Korea, it has proved useful to include its neighbours, Japan and South Korea, in the negotiations to discourage it from going down the nuclear weapons route. Should not Iran’s neighbours, particularly Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, be invited by the Security Council to join the negotiations over Iran, especially as the Iranians need to realise that those three countries might themselves go nuclear if Iran ends up as a nuclear weapons state?
David Miliband: Only up to a point. The multilateral negotiations are not being conducted under a UN framework—the E3 plus 3 is not a UN body, but it is recognised to have a global coalition behind it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might have an important point, which was at the heart of the E3 plus 3 offer agreed under my chairmanship last May in London. It concerns what will happen in the future if Iran ceases its nuclear weapons programme or restores the confidence of the international community that it does not have a nuclear weapons programme. There are important regional political issues about Iran’s legitimate interests in the region, but no discussion of those issues can take place without the involvement of the countries that he has mentioned.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and that the best way to prevent any ratcheting up of tensions in the region is to declare our support for a nuclear-free middle east? That would include Israel’s having to bring its nuclear weapons to a de-alert status and would help to promote the idea of disarmament throughout the region to bring about stability, rather than the obviously very great danger of the development of an arms race across the region.
David Miliband: We have done that for a long time. It is important to be clear that through the Iranian programme we face the danger of proliferation and the sort of domino effect described by my hon. Friend. Iran, of course, is a signatory to the NPT. My hon. Friend is right. Inherent in the idea of the drive towards multilateral disarmament, eventually including the global abolition of nuclear weapons—a commitment that every signatory to the NPT makes—is the idea of a drive towards a nuclear weapons-free middle east, too.
David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): At a meeting of the board of governors of the IAEA in Vienna on 2 March, the director general, Dr. Mohamed el-Baradei, reported, in addition to what the Foreign Secretary has said, that Iran continues to work on heavy water projects and that it declines to implement the additional protocol that is required of it. His recommendation was that a method should be found to find a way through by transferring these activities from national control to multilateral control. How does the Foreign Secretary think that that might be achieved in the short to medium term?
David
Miliband: I spoke to director general el-Baradei about
that issue when I met him at the Munich security conference. Inherent in the
idea that Iran has to win the
confidence of the international community that its uranium enrichment programme
does not have dual use is the notion that we are open to a range of ideas for
multilateral engagement with Iran over a civilian nuclear power programme—a
programme that, above all, is destined only for peaceful use.
That is why we have strongly supported Russian support and investment in the civilian Bushehr nuclear power plant. There is a range of options on the table, as long as Iran is clear that it cannot pursue a programme that fails to win the confidence of those of us who believe that anything other than a solely peaceful programme—and one that has the confidence of the international community that it is solely peaceful—is ever going to be able to play any part in stabilising the middle east.
Mr. Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): As well as selling air defence systems to Iran, Russia has continued to block attempts by the west to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. What are the Government doing to ensure that Russia does not continue to block the sanctions process?
David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. I am sure that he will have seen, as I did, at least a report of the interview that President Medvedev did for the BBC on Sunday, when he stated unequivocally that Russia does not want see the development of an Iranian nuclear weapons capacity. That is why Russia has supported successive UN Security Council resolutions to that end.
The hon. Gentleman is also right that it is important to recognise the urgency of the matter and the need to make it clear to the Iranians that the American offer currently being developed and made represents the best chance that Iran will ever have of normalising its relations with the rest of the world, and above all with the US. The whole world can play a role in supporting American outreach in that regard. It is not only for Europeans but for Russians and Chinese as well to make it clear that this is the best chance that Iran will ever have to regularise its relationships with the rest of the region and the rest of the world, but that cannot be done while there is so much concern about its nuclear weapons intentions.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab): I wish a happy new year to Iranians here and around the world. The Foreign Secretary rightly talks about multilateral engagement with the Government of Iran. Does he agree that part of that process should also be multilateral engagement with the Government of Israel about its nuclear weapons, as that would build confidence among the Iranians that there is an equivalent process there?
David
Miliband: The multilateral basis of engagement with
the Iranians is first of all in respect of its NPT obligations. That is why
this is an IAEA process, as well as a UN process. The sort of confidence and
stability that I know that my hon. Friend wants to see in the middle east can
be achieved only if nations abjure the sort of rejectionist rhetoric that has
emerged from Tehran, which produces the sort of fears that can lead to a nuclear
arms race.
The other thing to say is that it is not only Israel that is worried about an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. If one talks to people from any Arab or Gulf state, one sees that there is a very high degree of concern among them for obvious reasons, given the tinderbox that is always the middle east. The last thing that it needs is a nuclear weapons arms race. In that context, we have a real opportunity, and responsibility, to bring old foes over the Israel-Palestine issue together on the Iranian issue. We believe that it is essential to move forward on the middle east peace process, but we must also recognise that there are also new coalitions to be built on the Iranian nuclear issue.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con): A moment ago, the Foreign Secretary spoke about the urgency of the process. Given that it is more than 12 months since the Prime Minister threatened new sanctions on Iranian oil and gas, and nine months since the E3 plus 3 made the offer to transform relations if Iran would suspend enrichment, will the right hon. Gentleman say today how much longer we are prepared to wait before we go back to the EU and the UN to ask for more sanctions? That would clearly show that we are taking both tracks of the dual-track process that he has described with equal energy and determination.
David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman asked the same question several times last year. I know that he shares the Government’s commitments on this matter, but I say to him—in the nicest possible way—that one very big thing has changed since then. For the first time in 30 years there is an American Government who want to open a bilateral channel with the Iranian Government and people. By any stretch of the imagination, that is a big change.
Given
that the whole world, as well as the American Government, is committed to seeing
that outreach take place— [ Interruption. ] I hear
an Opposition Member shout, “How long?” but the Americans have not
even completed their review yet, so let us hold our horses about that. It surely
makes sense to say that the Americans should complete their review and ensure
that the elements of their multilateral and bilateral outreach are clarified
for the Iranians. If the Iranians do not respond in a positive way, we can then
ensure that further steps are taken. If the hon. Gentleman pauses to think about
it, he will recognise that now is not the time to be rushing for more sanctions;
instead, now is the time to be backing the American outreach, which is a once-in-a-generation
opportunity both for us and for the Iranians.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090331/debtext/90331-0001.htm#09033132000012
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Mark Tami.)
Joan Walley (in the Chair): It might be helpful to hon. Members if I point out that I am using the clock on the annunciator.
Mr. Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre) (Con): I sometimes point out to the Whips that I follow a different clock, but they never seem to agree with me.
It is a great opportunity to have this debate on Iran. Perhaps this year more than any other it is vital to examine our policy towards Iran and consider where in our history we have failed, what we are really trying to achieve and whether we are going about it in the right way. I shall consider three different points: how to build trust, who to engage with and whether our current policies are working.
Over the next 12 months in Iran, there will be presidential elections, there is the potential for the first civil nuclear power station to come on line and there is the real and threatening possibility of enough nuclear material to make at least one nuclear bomb being in the hands of Iranians. If we consider those points alongside the fact that there is a new American Administration, a collapse in the oil revenues and a worsening security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I think that we would all agree that the short-term challenges are considerable to say the least.
I have been the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Iran for more than two years. In that time, we have heard from a whole range of experts on Iran—contributors from the US Government, ambassadors, academics and trade unionists. Some contributors were pro the current Iranian regime, some were against, and some just wanted to share their wisdom. Only last month, we met a delegation of Iranian MPs from the Majlis, and more recently we met the Syrian ambassador. I visited Tehran with two of my colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), in July and I am due to go again soon. Our meetings are well attended by all parties and those from both Houses.
It
is tempting to start with the usual speech about how historical and cultural
the country is. I have heard it many times and it usual predicates the tit-for-tat
rhetoric that we so often hear when dealing with Iranian issues. I think that
it is sufficient to say that Iran is an ancient cultural and strategic power
that we cannot afford to ignore or to fail in our efforts to improve relations
with. The new world order needs Iran to become not only a member, but a player.
Too many of our discussions about Iran are bogged down in the past. We should
start by recognising that Britain’s role in Iran over the past century
has, on balance, been more harmful than benign to many of the people of Iran.
We have
made mistakes. It was wrong for us to back Saddam Hussein in the horrendous
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Insult was added to injury when the indictment against
Saddam Hussein only dealt with his crimes against Iraqis; no mention was made
about the gas attacks on Iranian civilians and military forces.
Even though I was only eight at the time of the revolution and ten during the Iran-Iraq war, I was deeply struck on my recent visit in July by how that conflict dominates so much of Iran’s society today. The tragedy of our policy in the west is that we still do not see Iran as it sees itself, and we have not communicated enough for them to understand the way that we do see it. Too many people stopped the tape when the hostage crisis finished in January 1981, and as the Islamic revolution entrenched and western opposition hardened, it became in the interests of too many people in the US and Iran to maintain hostilities. Revolutionary hard-liners needed a bogey man to continue the momentum and consolidate their control inside Iran. The west wanted revenge for the loss of their placeman, the Shah. To this day, the revolution is used by many to justify policies on both sides. Such policies have failed to give Iran its place in the world and have also failed to ensure a stable middle east.
As a 38-year-old, it would be easy to feel old in Iran where the average age is 26, but, like most of its population, I just about have the luxury of youth when it comes to setting aside the past and focusing on the future. I have hopes for a richer, better Iran, just as I have hopes for a better Britain. So, let us talk about the future. In my dealings with Iranians, I have learned that the heart of the issue is trust. We do not trust them, and they do not trust us. Do they have cause to mistrust us? It is a matter of public knowledge that Iran helped us to bring down the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan. We have failed spectacularly to deal with the resulting explosion in the heroin crop that all too often finds it way on to the streets of Iran and its major cities.
Let us imagine what Iranian politicians feel when we try to do deals with so-called Taliban commanders whose day jobs are as drugs barons. However, when our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are killed by devices incorporating Iranian components, we rightly feel that Iran exports terrorism. On the nuclear issue, Iran suspended enrichment in 2004 in the hope that the United States would engage, but unfortunately it was snubbed. Iran might ask why it should do it again. There are numerous examples on both sides. Do I think that Iran will admit its role or that the UK Government will admit their failures? I very much doubt it. We often dance around the rhetoric, and many of us have met representatives from the Iranian regime and members, and have sat for hours listening to the tit-for-tat rhetoric with little getting done apart from drinking coffee. The choice is simple: we can dance around the matter, or we can move in favour of starting afresh.
How
do we build trust? We can start by accepting that whatever we think of the Iranian
Government, we must accept that they are a legitimate authority. Even among
Iranians who oppose the Islamic revolution or the current President, there is
an acceptance that the Government in Tehran rules by consent. We should not
engage in regime change or seek to subvert the Administration. If necessary,
we should be prepared to guarantee their security. We must recognise that Iran
has rights, while at the same time supporting all its peoples’ rights—and
by “all” I mean rights relating to faiths, genders and race. Iranian
rights and human rights can be compatible.
There are other issues that need resolving. At home, we are faced with pressure from some to de-proscribe the terrorist group the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq—or the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran. The PMOI group has been active in terrorism since the 1970s, both inside and outside Iran. We should not forget that in the 1970s, it killed a number of US citizens and supported the storming of the embassy in Tehran. As well as acting as Saddam’s death squads inside and outside Iraq, the PMOI has consistently waged attacks on the Iranian Government. As recently as January this year, the US Department of State reconfirmed the MEK as being a foreign terrorist organisation. I know that the UK Government support that listing and I implore them to keep the group proscribed, whatever it takes.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on obtaining the debate and I apologise for missing the first minute of it. We have been through this matter and had debates on the proscription of the PMOI, and universally the British courts and subsequently the European courts have decided to de-proscribe it. What evidence does he have that it continues to be a terrorist organisation?
Mr. Wallace: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the terrorism legislation of 2000, he will know that many of the court rulings are based on the legislation on proscribing an organisation. I think that proscribing is flawed. United States legislation is allowed to take on board whether the organisation still has the intent to cause acts of terror. Given that most of the leadership of the MEK and PMOI have not changed over a considerable period, it is not right to de-proscribe it. Of course, I respect the rule of law and therefore if the courts have said that, we have to follow the rules of the court. However, I implore the Government to reassess their terrorist legislation to ensure that when we proscribe organisations, we do so not just on the basis of what they seek to do at the current time, but on what they seek to do in the future and have done in the past.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con): My hon. Friend said that the PMOI has been involved in terrorism since the 1970s. The High Court in the United Kingdom has heard all the evidence. Some of us were present in court but did not hear all the evidence because some of it was heard in camera. So the court heard all the evidence, as has the European Court, which has concluded that since 2002, the PMOI—the MEK—has not been involved in terrorism. What possible justification does my hon. Friend have for the remarks he has made?
Mr.
Wallace: The statement I made in my speech about the activity
of the PMOI comes from the Department of State’s recent listing, in which
it gives its reasons for proscribing—[Interruption.]
I consider US intelligence to be important in making these decisions. Having
personally been involved in actions with the Provisional IRA and the IRA, I
recognise that the past is just as important as the future. I would be interested
to know
whether my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) voted for our
colleagues in Sinn Fein to receive allowances when the matter was raised in
the House. I suspect that—[Interruption.] That person
did not, given that he is presently not an active member of a terrorist organisation,
although I am sure that in the past he was. I would like to move on.
It is important that we recognise that the PMOI and the MKO represent a dangerous organisation at the very heart of Iran, no matter what people’s views are on the regime. In fact, the supreme leader himself was blown up by the PMOI and lost one of his arms, and the second President of the Iranian Republic was killed. Imagine what Conservative Members would think of any deal with the IRA, had it been successful in killing half the Cabinet in the Brighton bombing. We must recognise that there are terrorist groups in Iran that would not help the cause, let alone move it forward.
The second question is, who do we do business with in Iran? People often ask me that because Iran, which does not have a political system like ours—no parties, no party leadership—is often driven by personalities and factions. Some would like to posture around the Iranian President, and some Iran watchers are toying with the idea of waiting for a new, perhaps more moderate President.
From the outside, no matter what Presidents look like or say, we should remember that the nuclear programme has gone on under reformist and conservative Presidents. We should recognise that the Iranian constitution makes it clear that power in Iran is nearly always, and always has been, with the supreme leader. It is the words and actions of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that, in the end, can help forge a resolution. Constitutionally, it is he who controls the levers of the state—the courts, the media and the revolutionary guard—and even the President and Foreign and Defence Ministers must be vetted by his office.
My message to the new Administration in Washington and to the Government is to try to go to the top. Let us try to speak directly to the supreme leader. Let us ask him to put aside his role of speaking only to heads of Muslim countries, and to try to engage directly with the United States and to put aside historical preconditions, because that is the way to get some real resolution.
Perhaps because Iran is a revolutionary state, or perhaps because it is not governed by a party political system, parties, personalities and slogans take centre stage. Observers find it hard to distinguish gesture politics from real politics. A good example of the gap between official speak and actions is that in Iran it is illegal to have a satellite dish, but everyone has one. One can see them on driving down any road. As one diplomat once said, there is something very French about the Iranians.
If people believed every slogan, they would certainly think that they would be in danger going anywhere in Iran, but that is not the case. The Iranian people are friendly, approachable and engaging. We have to distinguish between slogans and reality. We are, perhaps, safer in Iran than in Saudi Arabia, so let us not get hung up on inflammatory statements made by the current President Ahmadinejad or on the death to America day, an annual event to which I have not yet been invited. If I can live with a Bobby Sands avenue outside a British embassy, I am sure that other people can live with other gimmicks.
Perhaps the real hints to where Iran is are in the writings of supreme leader Khamenei. On the subject of future engagement with the US, only last year he said to students in Yazd:
“However we have never said that the relations”—
“will remain severed forever...Undoubtedly, the day the relations with America prove beneficial for the Iranian nation, I will be the first one to approve of that.”
Regrettably, like several Islamic leaders, the supreme leader does not recognise the state of Israel, and that is a bad step for Iran and other nations. We must deal with today, and I agree with the right of Israel to exist. However, his words are not the same as the inflammatory language of the current President.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet) (Lab): Ayatollah Khamenei’s language might not be the same, but the hon. Gentleman has already said that he is the supreme leader, and that he is the one who influences everything that goes on in that country. If he does not agree with the inflammatory language of the President, why does he not do something about it?
Mr. Wallace: There are two things to say on that. First, Presidents come and go, and there is no history of supreme leaders intervening with Presidents. It would not be in the interest of the supreme leader domestically to do that. However, when it comes to determining the significance of the threat from Iran, we need to look to the supreme leader rather than the President. The man who has the authority to declare war is the supreme leader, not the President. The constitution will guide us as to exactly when we should be worried about statements by Iranian leaders.
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD): The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech. He has huge expertise in this area, and I want to ask his opinion. As he just said, the supreme leader has written that he would be open to engagement with America if it were to change its approach to Iran. Does he think that an opening-up to America and the west by Iran could potentially undermine the Iranian leadership and threaten its theological underpinnings and that, therefore, it might walk away, or does he think that it is more confident than that and that it is prepared to engage, even if that meant much greater opening-up to the west and interchange with it?
Mr. Wallace: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I would agree with the latter suggestion. The supreme leader recently made an exception to his rule and met President Putin. Although President Ahmadinejad may feel undermined—we must remember that he came to power on a wave of nationalism and cheap shots—the supreme leader has realised that his strategy has failed. Iran has been weakened, and it has not made any friends in the middle east. The arguments between Egypt and Iran over the Hamas-Gaza problem demonstrate that Iran has become less popular in the middle east than it was at the start of the presidency.
The
supreme leader is the one who can move things forward. I do not think that his
position would be weakened hugely if he made such an attempt. Of course, Iran
can always say no afterwards. It is the preconditions
to engagement that have often held up talks—the requirement that Iran suspend
its nuclear programme before talks, that kind of thing—and they do not
move the process on. I am hopeful and optimistic, but I do not underestimate
the threat to Israel from Iran. I am not trying to say that it is all a bed
of roses, or that the threat is a fiction—it certainly is not. There is
a threat to Israel from Iran, and we have to deal with it in short time, before
Israel exercises its right of self-defence.
Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech. In trying to build relations, gestures and actions are important, particularly in that part of the world. He will know that Iran’s uranium enrichment programme could eventually lead to nuclear weapons. Does he think that if this country, given its long-term non-proliferation objectives, were to put the Trident decision on hold, such a gesture would help Iran to further its future objectives on the weaponisation of its uranium?
Mr. Wallace: First, my understanding of Trident replacement is that it will still mean a reduction in the number of warheads, so it is a move in the right direction. Secondly, even if one were advocating the suspension of Trident replacement, that is not the same as advocating unilateral disarmament. I do not think that the gesture would work.
One could argue that western nuclear powers developed their weapons in the 1950s because of fears of instability. Certainly the French felt that it was vital for them to find their place in the world and achieve stability in what had been a very unstable Europe. Perhaps that is one of the factors that drives some of Iran’s neighbours to want nuclear weapons. Some may believe that a nuclear weapon will give them stability and a place at the top table. There are better ways of doing that, but, if my neighbours were Pakistan and Afghanistan, I would feel pretty unstable. I am sure that all of us would. However, the supreme leader is the man to do business with; history shows us that it is not the President.
What message can I give to Iran? What do the Iranian people need to hear from us to understand us better? First, the days of imperialism are over. Britain and the US do not want to make the Iranian people subjects, or to fill their country with spies and terrorists, which is often the first defence; we want Iran to be our friend. Iran must recognise that our fear of a nuclear bomb is borne of the very modern desire for stability in the region.
I often ask myself why we in the west are so close to Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, when Saudi Arabia gives to Christians, Jews and everybody else fewer rights than even Iran does, and is less safe for us than Iran. Why is it that, over the years, we have been so close to Saudi Arabia? I am not even sure that Saudi Arabia officially recognises Israel either, so the only answer that I can come up with to my question is stability. Saudi Arabia provides stability in the region, and if Iran recognises that stability is the answer, it will also recognise that in today’s west, we value that currency more than anything else.
Mr.
Jeremy Browne (Taunton) (LD): I am grateful to the
hon. Gentleman for giving way in what is an excellent speech. Do the Iranians
also have an incentive to engage
more with the west because President Ahmadinejad came to power on a wave of
desire from the overwhelmingly young population to see some of the material
benefits that people in the west enjoy? On the occasions on which I have been
to Iran, what has been most striking is that the anti-American rhetoric is a
far weaker impulse than the desire to own a Michael Jackson CD and a pair of
Levi jeans. If we could show the Iranian people that engagement with the west
was of financial and material benefit to them, and that it would allow them
to take their rightful place in the wider world, surely that would be a powerful
incentive?
Mr. Wallace: Yes, undoubtedly. If we had the time, economics, rather than sanctions and so on, would solve the Iran question, but, regrettably, we do not have that time. Ironically, one of President Ahmadinejad’s slogans when running for election was that he would refine more oil and give the revenue to the poor. Unfortunately, I think that he has replaced “oil” with “yellow cake”, because he now spends most of his money refining nuclear materials rather than benefiting his society economically. Interestingly enough, his popularity is not very high as a result.
Mr. Gale: A few moment ago, my hon. Friend said that stability was the most valuable currency in the west, and we recognise that. He implied that the Iranians should trade on it, but if stability was the most valuable currency in the west and we did not care about hanging people from the ends of cranes, and about human rights, we could argue that Saddam Hussein’s regime was stable and, certainly, that Robert Mugabe’s regime was stable. Is my hon. Friend in favour of that?
Mr. Wallace: My hon. Friend lets himself down with that sort of question. He has to answer the question of why in the middle east we have other allies that openly behead people in squares and do not respect human rights anything like as much as Iran does. We seem to do business with many of those countries at the same time. I said earlier in my speech that human rights are very important, but they are compatible with Iran’s rights and we need to help Iran to recognise that. They are compatible with Islam too. It is remarkable that we trade with some of those other countries. The longest-term threat, which one hears about in Iran if one goes to the country, is Wahhabi Sunni Islam, rather than the Iranian regime. I said to the Iranians recently, “When you used your influence beneficially in 2006 to create a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, you got closer to the top table than you’d ever been before. That is when you are powerful. When you use your influence the wrong way, such as with Hamas recently, you weaken yourself on the world stage and give no benefit whatever. It is a step backwards.” If Iran recognises that influence can be benign for all of us, it will obtain much more currency with western powers. That is my main message to Iran.
In
this day and age, powerful countries are not those that create mayhem or fear,
but those that use their influence to resolve conflicts. If they do that, they
can take their place in the world order, as they hope to do. Members from all
parts of the House are united on the policy of trying to develop better relations
with Iran, but we must be clear about our end goals and whether
the E3 plus 3 strategy works. I am always amazed that we have an overall strategy
towards Iran. The E3 plus 3 is the European powers plus the United States, China
and Russia, but the Chinese sell missile guidance systems to Iran, and the Russians
are currently refitting two attack submarines. That is a problem, so Iranians
see the E3 plus 3 as weak.
Under George W. Bush’s presidency, the E3 plus 3 was certainly leaderless; it did not have much strength behind its rhetoric. There is now a great opportunity for the United States, with a strong President who has a proper mandate, to help to develop clear leadership on policy towards Iran and not to give in to the neo-con wing that often undermined policy in the middle east and has been shown to have failed miserably. There is a real opportunity for President Obama to create a strong “3” to add to the E3, to enable us to achieve a resolution. We will know sooner rather than later—when the United States finalises its formal position on Iran—whether there are going to be preconditions for talks. I hope that there will not be. I have first-hand experience of having to talk to terrorists without preconditions; it is not easy and it is certainly not nice. However, some preconditions never work; they only play into the hands of people who do not want a resolution.
We must then examine the sanctions regime, because it strikes me that, historically, Iranians have been incredibly successful at trading. They were at the centre of trade routes for centuries, and they have already shown that, no matter what sanctions we try to impose on them, they are able to outwit them. They recently launched a satellite into space, they trade through Bahrain, which is opposite Iran and has a large Iranian ethnic population, and they are very canny traders. The problem is that sanctions help Iran’s religious conservatives, who demonstrate in their teachings and writings that isolationism is the way forward, because it keeps the revolution pure. With sanctions, we prevent the economic growth that would help to reform the way in which young people look at Iran today.
We must make it clear to our Government that next time we come up with sanctions, either they must be uniformly applied or we should not go down that route at all. That is the problem: we start with a sanction and China and Russia do not back it. Recently, Switzerland signed a big contract with Iran to obtain gas. There is a problem delivering the gas, but the contract showed that, when push came to shove, Switzerland did not hang around to stop helping the Iranian regime. Indeed, the Italian Foreign Minister recently urged Italian companies to do more business with Iran—trusty Italy comes to the rescue on another subject.
We
must understand that Iran is desperate to prove that it has rights in the world
and is able to demonstrate those rights. We must assure Iranians that we are
not going after control of their country: our rhetoric does not match our actions,
and we need to bring the two into line. Britain is known by the Iranians for
having soft rhetoric but hard actions, whereas the Americans are known for having
tough rhetoric but an inability to carry out their actions. There is challenge
to be met in respect of whatever policy we come up with, which will no doubt
be formed in response to the policy of the United States in the next few months.
I urge Her Majesty’s Government to come up with a clear road map that is
strong, reinforced and shows Iranians the way, but at the same time demonstrates
to Iran that we know that we could have done things better in the past.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet) (Lab): I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) on his interest in this subject and on getting this debate. However, I view some of his words a little sceptically and I wonder whether he is looking at the Iranian regime through rose-tinted spectacles. I agree that we need to engage with that regime, that we need to win the trust of the Iranian people and that we need a bigger carrot than we are currently offering if we want to get that engagement, but I found his comments rather conflicting. He said, for example, that we needed to engage with the regime, whatever we think of it and whatever actions it has taken in the past. Yet he does not want us to engage with the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran, because it may have past links to terror.
The hon. Gentleman asked the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), who is his hon. Friend and my parliamentary neighbour, whether he would have supported the Conservative Government’s talking to Irish terrorists if they had succeeded in killing members of the Front Bench. I remind the hon. Gentleman that they did; they killed Airey Neave a few feet from where we are standing now. To the credit of the last Conservative Government, they engaged with Irish terrorists and started the process that we were able to conclude. If violence is in the past, as it would appear to be with some of the organisations involved with issues in Iran, which are operating outside that country and have renounced violence, we have to engage with them and give them a voice, because surely that is what being members of a democratic society requires us to do.
I do not consider myself a specialist in foreign policy and I rarely speak on the subject in this House. But I became exercised about our relationship with Iran and its influence in the middle east as a result of a visit to Israel and Palestine last year. During that visit, I heard first hand about the influence that Iran wields, particularly over Hamas and, increasingly, in the north with Hezbollah. In return for providing resources to those organisations, Iran expects them to engage in continued violence against Israel. There is no questioning that. If I had been told that on my visit only by Israeli politicians, I might well have concluded that they would say that, wouldn’t they? But I was told the same thing by Palestinian politicians when I visited the west bank. Again, if those politicians in Palestine had all been members of Fatah or had links to it, I may have come to the same conclusion, because they have a dispute with Hamas. But I also heard it from Palestinian politicians with no links to Fatah and who are not beholden in any way to Fatah.
It is clear to me, from subsequent events—the actions that we saw as people tried to negotiate a ceasefire after the Israeli attacks on Gaza in January—that Iran is making its continued support for Hamas dependent on Hamas’s continuing to allow, or turn a blind eye to, attacks on Israel. While those missile attacks on Israel continue, the Israelis will continue to attack Gaza and the dispute and the awful violence that is happening at the moment will continue. We have to detoxify that whole area if we are to make any progress.
We were getting somewhere in the north. I visited Israeli settlers on the Golan, who were saying, “We will give up the Golan to Syria as part of a peace deal and, for the first time, we believe that a real peace deal with Syria is within our grasp. We can do a deal with Syria. We understand that giving the Golan back to Syria will be part of that deal. And we will go. We, the Israelis who occupy the Golan, will go as part of a real peace deal.” What has happened to that peace deal? Iran has exerted its influence again. It has started to try to build influence with Hezbollah and tried to make it clear to Syria that any continued relationship between Syria and Iran depends on Syria’s not making any progress with such peace negotiations. This is the reality of what I have called Iran’s toxic influence in the middle east. Until we detoxify that influence and get Iran to start engaging more positively and more constructively, we will never have a resolution to these problems.
How do we move forward? I mentioned to the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell) at Foreign Office questions a few days ago that Einstein said that it was madness for people to carry on doing what they are doing and expect it to have a different result. It is clear to me that what we are doing at the moment is not having the effect that we would like.
If I do not regard myself as an expert on foreign policy, I do regard myself as an expert on nuclear policy and nuclear energy. I can tell the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre unequivocally that the uranium enrichment programme in which Iran is engaged is unnecessary for peaceful use of nuclear energy in this world. I accept Iran’s right to have a nuclear energy programme. I support nuclear energy in this country and I see no reason why it cannot benefit countries throughout the world. I would be 100 per cent. behind our engagement with Iran in helping it build a peaceful nuclear energy programme. But it is not doing that. Iran now has enough uranium probably to build a bomb. It may not be able to construct the bomb yet, but that will come. It certainly has enough uranium to build a dirty bomb. Who can doubt, listening to the President of Iran’s words, that, in this world, an Iran with a nuclear bomb would be a nightmare that all of us and our children should do everything in our power to avoid?
We have to start tightening up the sanctions. The hon. Gentleman was right. We have to make some of our partners in the E3 plus 3 a bit more honest about those sanctions. Russia is helping Iran build one of its nuclear reactors and that has to stop. China is selling equipment to Iran that it should not be selling and that has to stop. Even in the European Union, Austria, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Greece are all putting their business interests in Iran before the interests of their citizens in the wider world. We need to deal with that in two ways: formally, within the EU, and by raising the rhetoric in those countries, so that the people there realise what their Governments are allowing to happen. I do not believe that the people of Austria, Greece and the other countries that I mentioned want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
We
must tighten up the financial sanctions. Our own Lloyds bank was found guilty
of—inadvertently or advertently I will not say—helping Iran launder
money to get past the sanctions. Now we own a big stake in that bank. If any
of those banks in which we, the
British Government, have a stake are found to be continuing to launder money
on behalf of the Iranians, that would be the same as the British Government
doing it. So it must stop.
We must tighten the sanctions to avoid Iran being able to get access to the financial sector and the City of London. I admit that we might have done slightly more harm to the Iranian regime by allowing its banks to become involved in the financial services sector over recent years, but we now need to ensure that they are excluded. We also need to tighten up our efforts through the United Nations and Europe.
I have decided to become involved in the debate for the reasons that I mentioned. We need to build trust with the Iranian people and we need a bigger carrot as well as a heavier stick. I encourage my hon. Friend the Minister and the Government to do more to involve the Arab nations in our effort to get Iran to engage constructively in the future, because they have as much, if not more, to lose from a nuclear-armed Iran as we have.
We need to tighten sanctions, and to make it clear to Iran that we are serious. We must explain our position to the people of this country so that they understand exactly how serious the matter is, and that taking action now will avoid the violence that will come if we are weak or lack resolve.
Joan Walley (in the Chair): Order. It may be helpful to tell hon. Members that I hope that we can start the winding-up speeches at 10.30. I see no problem with that, but I remind hon. Members so that everyone can speak.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con): I shall be brief. I had not intended to speak and came to listen, but having done so, I am moved to comment a little.
When introducing the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) described the regime in Iran as legitimate, by which I assume that he means that it was elected. Hamas was elected, but I do not recall the United States or the United Kingdom legitimising that regime on the basis that it was democratically elected, so I can only conclude that one man’s legitimacy is another’s terrorism.
The People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran and the National Council of Resistance in Iran have been consistently and variously described as terrorists by the British Government and others, and there is not much argument that they have engaged in terrorist activity in the past. Forgive me, but Jomo Kenyatta was a terrorist. Someone called Nelson Mandela was regarded as a terrorist, as were Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. But games move on, and if we are to look to the future of the middle east rather than the past, we must accept the fact that there are people of good will whose past is not admirable to us or even to some of them, but who have an important role to play. If we are talking about engagement, the time has come for the United Kingdom and European Governments to engage with those other organisations that are legitimate and have an interest in the democratic future of Iran.
The British Government fought furiously against de-proscribing the PMOI. They resisted the findings of the European Court of Justice and tried every which way not to de-proscribe it, as indeed did the European Council of Ministers. The Foreign Secretary recently attended a meeting at which I was present on the Upper Committee corridor. When I asked him whether the organisation should be proscribed, he told me that I did not know all the facts. I do not know all the facts. I am not privy to the secret files of MI5, MI6 or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre apparently is, the State Department.
Mr. Wallace: They are on the website.
Mr. Gale: If they were on the website, they would not be secret. With great respect, I suggest that secret files are secret, and not published on the website. Irrespective of whether I have been privy to those documents, the Court was; those MI5 and MI6 documents were made available to the judges.
Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD): I was privy to the discussions in the European Court of First Instance when the barristers representing the PMOI were repeatedly asked for that evidence, but it simply did not exist. We anticipated a long adjudication, but it came the next day, because there was no evidence to justify the continuation of the ban on the PMOI.
Mr. Gale: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. There is evidence and evidence, but our Foreign Secretary—who am I to doubt him?—said that the information existed. If it did, it was made available to the High Court, and I attended some of the hearings. Our High Court judges are not blithering idiots, but they came down clearly in favour of de-proscription and said so clearly in their ruling. As a result, to be fair, the Government de-proscribed the PMOI.
The same thing happened in Europe. Notwithstanding the best endeavours of the United Kingdom Government to try to use the French Government to oppose the de-proscription of the PMOI by proxy—the French Government are still opposed to de-proscription—but the Council of Ministers found in favour of de-proscription, so it has been de-proscribed. My understanding is that it is therefore no longer considered to be a terrorist organisation. The British Government’s secret service may regard it as such; the United States State Department may regard it as such; and for all I know, the Quai d’Orsay may regard it as such, but that does not make it a terrorist organisation today.
The PMOI and its supporters face a desperate situation in Ashraf city, where the Americans have handed control to the Iraqi Government on the understanding that the security of the residents will be maintained, but there are grave doubts. First, I would like an undertaking from the Minister on the record, in so far as he can give one—I appreciate that he may say that it is a matter for the Americans and the Iraqis, rather than us, but we have some influence in Iraq—that the Government will do everything to ensure that the residents of Ashraf city and the Iranians who are mainly supporters of the PMOI are secure.
Secondly,
there is the small matter of PMOI funds, which are still frozen in France. The
organisation has been de-proscribed, and the French Government are
acting illegally, so will the Minister use such influence as he has in the European
Union, particularly with the French, to ensure that those funds are released?
Thirdly, if we are to find a way forward, people must start talking to one another. Curiously, despite everything that I have said, I have no particular brief for the PMOI or the NCRI. I do not believe that they are the solution, but I believe that they have the potential to be part of the solution. I would like the PMOI, Pahlavi’s organisation and all those who wish to make a contribution to a genuinely democratic future for Iran to work together to secure what I believe we all want, irrespective of our position on the issue—free, fair, democratic and monitored elections in that country with respect for the outcome, whatever it may be. I would not want to predict at this stage what it might be. The people of Iran have a right to a democratic election, and then to adhere to its result.
Finally, will the Minister indicate whether the Government would look favourably on an application for a visa for Maryam Rajavi to visit the United Kingdom?
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): Like the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), I did not intend to take part in this debate, and I apologise for having to leave a few minutes early, so I shall have to read what the Minister says.
I want to concentrate on the narrow but important domain of human rights. The greatest condemnation of the mullahs’ regime should be reserved for their dreadful human rights record. I remind hon. Members that that state is probably second only to China in the number of people it kills by capital punishment, and there is an argument that it may kill more people than any other state. The hon. Gentleman referred to the way in which it conducts those punishments. Hanging people publicly from various capital equipment is horrific, and last Saturday’s Daily Mirror shows graphically the 59 people who were hanged in January.
Whatever else one thinks about Iran, it is a great nation. It is not Arabic, but consists of Farsi-speaking people. We should always respect it and want to work with it, but until it improves its human rights record, it is up there with the nations that I feel deeply about—including Sudan, Zimbabwe and so on—because of the way it subjugates its people.
As has been said, do not be a member of the opposition in Iran, because people who are have every chance of being arrested, imprisoned and subsequently hanged. Do not be a Baha’i. I was pleased to see early-day motion 937 on that issue, tabled by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik). Again, the Baha’i are being singled out for mistreatment, arrest and worse.
I was also pleased to see in today’s Hansard that the Minister has answered the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on how many representations he has made to Iran on behalf of Christians. He said that he had made more than 40 representations. Do not be a Christian in Iran. Those are minority religions, but they are important religions. If we were mistreating Muslims in this country, I would expect us to be held to account in the court of world justice. Iran does it, because it appeals to the mob, and that has to stop.
Mark Williams: Does the hon. Gentleman share what I am sure is the concern of the whole Chamber about the position on juvenile executions? The Minister, to his credit, has raised the issue and has had assurances from the Iranian ambassador that, in October 2008, there was a decree outlawing juvenile executions, yet there have been reports since then that that practice still happens Iran.
Mr. Drew: It does, and again there is no effective defence for people.
The other issue, besides human rights, is the failing Iranian economy. In a sense, the suppression mirrors the economic failings. I know that in these times, when the whole world seems to be in difficulties, we can perhaps exaggerate the difficulties in other parts of the world to make ourselves feel less worried about our own situation, but there is an economic crisis in Iran, and it has resulted in even more pressure from the centre to deal with any form of opposition.
Iran is, of course, an oil economy: as the price of oil has collapsed, it has been able to earn far less revenue. It also has very high inflation, and the public of Iran are therefore hit both ways. We know that there is great unhappiness. Anyone who studies Iran will know that there are regular street demonstrations, until they are put down. There is a lot of insurrection on university campuses, but of course the secret service ensures that that does not last long. Even within the regime itself, there is a split between the hardliners and the more liberal element, represented by Khatami. It is reputed that he will make another attempt to run for the presidency, but at the moment Ahmadinejad seems to have the support of the great leader Khamenei. That will probably mean that he is likely to win any election.
I shall finish by echoing the remarks of both my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) and particularly the hon. Member for North Thanet. There are concerns among those of us who would be quite proud that we have supported the Iranian opposition that we need to look at what is happening to the PMOI in Ashraf city. I ask the Minister to examine carefully what is happening now that the Iraqi Government have taken responsibility, to ensure that there is no revenge against the people there and particularly to ensure that they are not doing the bidding of the Iranian Government, because that would be a tragedy and a negation of some of the things that they have done.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet reminded us about the nuclear situation. Without the PMOI and the NCRI, we would not necessarily have known about the enrichment going on at Natanz. They did immeasurable good in announcing that to the world. That is where the process started of trying to get Iran to understand that it is not acceptable behaviour. I ask the Minister to consider that issue and to consider the general issue of human rights.
It is right of Parliament to look at parts of the world where the human rights record is abysmal. We should never be frightened to highlight such things. Even though we continue to talk and do business with people and we want to bring them into the great body of democracies, we can never do that until they improve their human rights record, so that it is at least tolerable. At the moment, the one that we are discussing is absolutely unacceptable.
Mr. Davey: No doubt. I was particularly interested in what the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) said about Iran’s negative influence on many parts of the middle east, which is a huge worry. I should say that it has not just been a worry with the current regime, as over the centuries, the Iranians have undertaken their foreign policy in that way. Rather than foreign conquest, which many Iranian rulers have never gone for, partly because of the geography that the regime is dealing with, the country’s mountainous nature, its supply lines and so on, Iranian leaders have tended almost to conduct their imperial ambitions by proxy. That does not make it right, but it is a typical approach by the Iranians, and one has to understand how they work, both historically and in the current regime, if one is to deal with them.
The only point that has not come out in the debate so far is the urgency of the Iranian question. Much of the evidence suggests that the Iranians could be close to being able to produce a bomb. Recently, we have seen reports saying that they have enough low-enriched uranium to build a dirty bomb. When I speak to people at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel and to the Foreign Office in this country, my impression is Iran could be a year, or perhaps two or three years, away from having enough highly enriched uranium to make the sorts of weapons that would be particularly threatening and destabilising, leading to the proliferation across the region about which everyone is rightly concerned. Even if they are not going to go to weaponisation by getting the highly enriched uranium and putting it in a missile, they will be near to what is known in the terminology as break-out. They could keep within the rules of the non-proliferation treaty, but within three months, get themselves weaponised and break out in the way other countries have done in the past. The potential for them to get to that threshold creates a dynamic, particularly with Israel but also with other countries, that is very destabilising, so this is not just a theoretical discussion. It is something that we could be dealing with as a country and as a world very soon.
The
question is how we approach the issue. There will be two major events in the
next six months that relate to that question. The first and most important is
the conclusion of the review undertaken by the new President of the United States.
We are told that later this month the Americans will decide their new policy
and tell us all about it. Clearly, that is critical in how we develop our policy.
The other big event is the Iranian elections. I think that they are slightly
less important to the development of our policy, partly for the reasons that
the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre discussed. Even if President Khatami
returns and defeats Ahmadinejad in the elections—it looks as if that will
be the contest—he
maintained the nuclear programme under his presidential leadership before, so
the nuclear issue will not go away, even after the election. Understanding what
the Americans will do is therefore critical.
What must the Americans be thinking, what questions must they be asking themselves and how should the Foreign Office interact with their review, as I hope that it is doing? There are a number of issues to consider. First, there are the sanctions, then there are the negotiations and the preconditions, and, finally, there is the rhetoric, which can be important. On sanctions, we and the Americans have to ask ourselves whether the current sanctions regime is working, and the answer is clearly that it is not. There are therefore only two options. First, we could strengthen the regime, because we think that it could work politically but we need to plug the gaps in the way that the hon. Member for South Thanet said, getting the Chinese, Russians, Austrians, Cypriots, Italians and all the others who have been mentioned to sort themselves out and creating a regime that brings Tehran to book, so that it will listen to us. That is a possibility, but it is clear from my description that it might not be as easy as some would hope. That option should certainly be considered, because sanctions regimes can work, but they must be rather more far-reaching than the current one.
The alternative view is that sanctions might not work. We might regret that, but we should perhaps look at another way of doing things. Perhaps sanctions are sending the wrong political message and preventing engagement. I genuinely do not know, but that is a matter for debate, and we need to ask the Americans how they will proceed. There is genuine concern that the sanctions regime is ineffective and, arguably, counter-productive. We then come to negotiations. Her Majesty’s Government have done an awful lot of work through the E3 plus 3 to get negotiations off the ground, and I pay tribute to them for doing so. On the face of it, Iran has been offered some fantastic deals and economic inducements, but, again, that does not appear to be working, and one has to ask why. Again, I am not sure and I am speculating, which is why I was particularly interested in what the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre had to say.
Part of the problem is understanding why Iran wants nuclear power or, indeed, why it wants the prospect of being able to get a nuclear bomb or to get a nuclear bomb itself. Is it because Iran wants to attack the rest of the world—perhaps Israel or somewhere else? Is it because it feels particularly insecure and thinks that it will be attacked? It has seen the American army in Iraq, and NATO in Afghanistan. It has also seen the instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it knows that Israel has a bomb. Perhaps the Iranian leadership is worried that someone might attack it—let us face it, there has been an open debate about whether Israel would attack it, and we thought at one time that President Bush’s Administration might do so. Iran may therefore want to arm itself because it fears being attacked.
Another
reason, which is presented as more potent for Iran in some of the material that
I have read, is that Iran is seeking stature and status; it wants to show that
it has arrived in the modern world. It believes that it has a proud Persian
past and it thinks, “If everyone else has these things, why can’t
we?” We have to understand that. Whether we like the regime or not, and
even
though we might think that it is appalling, we have to understand where it is
coming from and why it wants to pursue its present course, even though we may
find it distasteful. If we are to move the regime from its present course, we
have to meet that status issue in some other way in our negotiations. We therefore
really have to engage in the negotiations. Some Democrats in the US are talking
about a diplomatic surge being required to get the negotiations going, and they
may well be right.
A key issue for the negotiations, which the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre touched on, is the preconditions that we set. The current preconditions—in effect, that Iran must cease enrichment—are clearly not working, because nothing is happening. Despite all the inducements, the cessation of enrichment condition is not working. In some of the academic material and diplomatic debates, we have seen that preconditions can be finessed and tweaked, and that is clearly an option in the review. We have heard about the freeze-for-freeze option, under which we will freeze sanctions if Iran freezes enrichment. Several years ago, the International Crisis Group talked about a phased delay, with the west saying, “Yes, of course you have the right to enrich, but we want to negotiate with you and we want you to delay enrichment.” Such an approach would recognise Iran’s status, but get rid of the precondition that prevented negotiations.
The Americans’ review may look at those preconditions, and they may decide to drop them all, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre hinted. Candidate Obama certainly talked about that, although he got a lot of flak from the Republicans and slightly switched his position. However, he talked about negotiations with the Iranians with no preconditions, and I imagine that the Americans are reviewing that option.
I have dealt with the sanctions review and the negotiations, and I will finish with the rhetoric. Whatever the review decides, we have to tone down our rhetoric. Iran has rightly been criticised for some of the rhetoric in which it has engaged. That is particularly true of Ahmadinejad, whose rhetoric has been absolutely appalling—particularly the things that he said about Israel. However, I should quote former Vice-President Cheney, who said about Iran:
“We don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it.”
The rhetoric is on both sides. The “axis of evil” rhetoric is not helpful, and we have to ensure that we drop that nonsense from our approach.
This is an incredibly complex and nuanced debate. Besides the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, and perhaps the hon. Members for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) and for South Thanet, there are few people in the House who really understand all the levels. However, we tend to reach consensus on the issue in our debates, and I hope that we can take that forward so that Britain has the influence that it should have, particularly with the new American Administration.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) on securing the debate. There could hardly be a more important foreign affairs topic and one more deserving of debate in the House.
British policy towards Iran should be based first and foremost on a hard-headed and pragmatic assessment of where the British national interest lies. That interest certainly lies in seeing Iran once again become engaged as part of the mainstream of the international community. Several hon. Members have talked about the impact of economic change on Iran. Anybody who has been to Iran and experienced the planned power cuts every day or looked at the half-mile queues outside filling stations in that oil-producing country will have some awareness of the economic pressures that are biting on ordinary Iranian families.
There is no doubt that, with 60 per cent. of the population under 30, there is a tremendous appetite for economic growth and educational development, and for Iran to become part of the world once again. However, as my hon. Friend and others have said, the political obstacles in the way of that re-engagement are formidable, and the time available—particularly given the crisis over nuclear policy—is very limited.
As I look at Iran, I see a country that takes enormous pride in its history and cultural achievements. There is perhaps a parallel with China, in that Iran also has an abiding sense of resentment at having had its interests trampled over by the dominant powers in the world—the powers of the western world—for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. We do not necessarily have to agree with the Iranians’ view of the world to want to understand what it is like to be in their shoes. If one talks to Iranian Ministers and officials in Tehran, one hears that they feel surrounded. They say, “We have a nuclear Russia to the north of us, which occupied the northern part of our country not so many decades ago; we have a United States fleet to our south in the Gulf; we have an American army in Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east; we have a nuclear-armed Sunni power in Pakistan; and we have Israel, which is assumed to possess nuclear weapons, which talks about Iran representing an existential threat.” One of the starting points in considering policy must be to appreciate how the other side sees the world.
There are huge differences. I want briefly to digress, because the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) was right to flag up the continuing importance of human rights in any dialogue between London and Tehran. It is ironic that when one visits Tehran the Iranians talk with great pride about how there are designated seats in the Majlis for representatives of the Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities. That must be contrasted with the appalling apostasy laws and the ruthless treatment of members of the Baha’i faith, whose leaders are even now imprisoned without trial, possibly awaiting charges for which, if found guilty, they could face a capital penalty. As the hon. Member for Stroud pointed out, not only is the death penalty used, but it is used in the most barbaric fashion, and there is imprisonment without trial or due process. I encourage the Minister to continue to exhort the Iranians to improve their record on human rights.
Mr.
Wallace: Does my hon. Friend agree, on the subject of
rights, that the Iranian constitution gives many rights, and protects human
rights for all, but that the problem is that the present regime especially has
tried to step outside the constitution and veto those rights, continually using
terrorism and national security as an excuse? Does he agree that one thing that
the west
should do is urge Iran to stick to its constitution and stop it making exemptions
in its laws under the guise of national security?
Mr. Lidington: My hon. Friend makes his point effectively.
Iran has the capacity to play an important and constructive role in the politics of the middle east and south-western Asia. Initially, it was hostile to the Taliban and it co-operated with the coalition forces in 2001 when they first entered Afghanistan. There is no doubt, from talking to Iranian leaders, that they are acutely aware of the damaging impact of the drugs trade and large numbers of Afghan refugees on the stability of their society. There is scope for Iran to become a partner for stability in Afghanistan, but it would need a change of heart from Tehran, which would need to be willing to turn language about wanting co-operation into concrete policy.
It is fair, too, for the west to acknowledge that Iran has legitimate national interests at stake in Iraq and the wider Gulf region. However, if Iran wants the west to take its interests seriously, it needs to understand how destabilising are comments such as those made recently by one of the President’s advisers, asserting that Bahrain should be part of Iranian territory. I should like the Minister to say whether the Government have pressed the Iranians to make a clear assertion—because I think it is now needed—that they respect Bahrain’s sovereignty and independence. The current President of Iran has used inflammatory language about Israel. I have said to Iranians that they grossly underestimate the fear that such language has provoked in Israel. There is no doubt that there is genuine fear in Israel that Iran poses a threat to the state’s very existence, yet speeches are made by Iranian leaders—most recently by Dr. Larijani at the Munich security conference in February—in which they talk about Israel as they talk about other states; they do not talk about the Zionist entity, but about Israel, a country that exists: it is a country that they do not like, and with whose policies they are at odds, but they see it as part of the region, and part of the world. If the Iranians would make it clear that they are willing to accept the existence of Israel, and the reality of the Israeli state, it would help things move forward.
I must finish with a few words about the nuclear programme. There are some unpalatable facts. The programme is popular in Iran. There is a question as to how far we can trust any opinion survey, but there are surveys that show that up to 80 per cent. or more of the Iranian population support the case that Iran should have a nuclear capability. There is no doubt that the non-proliferation treaty gives Iran the right to civil nuclear power, but that right is subject to the rules and inspection regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The verdict set out in the IAEA’s most recent report of 19 February is clear: the Iranians are still refusing either to accept the additional protocol, which provides for unannounced inspections of key installations, or to provide full access to and co-operation with inspectors along the lines that the agency has been seeking.
The
question is now what should be done. Does the Minister believe that we can still
persuade Iran to stop, or at least suspend, its policy of enrichment? It is
quite possible for Iran to have a working civil nuclear energy
programme without the need to enrich material on Iranian soil. Is it possible
to insert into the system an effective and verifiable barrier between the acquisition
of a nuclear capability and the development of a nuclear weapon, so that any
temptation to move to nuclear break-out could be deterred, and any step towards
it, however slight, could be detected, and appropriate action could be taken?
In my party, we welcome President Obama’s outreach to Iran, but we believe that that message needs to be complemented by a greater determination on the part of the European Union to provide effective sanctions, to make it clear to Tehran that the alternative to engagement in response to the American initiative is major damage to the interests of Iran and its people. In particular, we want European sanctions against new oil and gas investment and a ban on new export credits. We have a chance available to us, but time is short, and I hope that the Minister will explain how the British Government plan to take policy forward in the next few months.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Bill Rammell): I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) on securing today’s debate, which has been constructive and well informed—across the Chamber. As hon. Members are aware, 2009 is shaping up to be a very significant year for Iran’s relationship with the international community. The United States, rightly in my view, is offering to extend its hand, and Iran, bluntly, will have to decide how to respond. President Obama said on 27 January that
“it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress.”
So far, the fist has remained clenched, but there is still time for Iran to change its approach. Iran could, and should, choose to transform its relationship with the international community. Such a decision would benefit Iran and its people and the whole international community. However, to take advantage of the opportunities that would flow from such a change, Iran must face up to its responsibilities, many of which it currently chooses to ignore.
We touched on the nuclear issue. Iran ignores its obligations to the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency. It chooses to defy the will of both by continuing to enrich uranium, and refusing the IAEA the access that it seeks. Iran disregards its responsibilities; it supports terrorism and chooses to undermine stability and security in its own neighbourhood. Inside its borders, Iran pays no heed to the commitment that it has freely undertaken to its people to uphold international standards of human rights.
The point is that Iran has choices to make and the opportunity to change course. On the nuclear file, Iran can suspend enrichment, take up the E3 plus 3 offer and enjoy the many benefits that will come from co-operating with the international community, rather than standing toe to toe with us and seeking further confrontation and isolation. Iran could pursue its legitimate interests in the region through legitimate means, and play a constructive rather than destructive role. On human rights, Iran could take steps to recover the prestige it claims for itself by guaranteeing the rights of its people.
Our position is clear; we would like to have the opportunity of engaging in a positive and constructive relationship with Iran. We share interests across a wide range of issues, including promoting stability, security and economic development in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Iran took the opportunity and changed course, we could work together constructively. However, Iran’s behaviour undermines our confidence, and makes a mockery of the claims that it makes for itself. Until Iran changes course, we will be uncompromising in calling on it to meet its obligations.
I now address some of the points made this morning. I start by answering the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, who initiated the debate. Let me be clear; we are not advocating or talking about regime change in Iran. We have made that clear both publicly and privately. This country has no hostility to Iran. As a number of Members said, it is a country with a long and distinguished history and a great culture.
We are open to contact with Iran. The Foreign Secretary has told Foreign Minister Mottaki that the United Kingdom sincerely wishes for a more positive relationship; but that requires Iran to change its behaviour, in particular to take up our offer on the nuclear file. If it does not do so, we will be forced to continue on the current path.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke about the suspension of enrichment by Iran in 2004. We need to look forward, rather than back to missed opportunities. Both sides have to be committed to the process. The international community is certainly willing to engage, but Iran has to meet its international obligations. The scope of the 2004 suspension was ambiguous, and Iran continued to enrich at a low level. That is one reason for the lack of trust and confidence.
I took some exception to the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the failure to tackle the drugs problem in Afghanistan. Progress is being made, but it is a colossal challenge. One problem in trying to thwart the drugs trade there is that although Iran supports Afghanistan through capacity building, it also gives the Taliban financial support, weapons and training. Support for the Taliban works fundamentally against the stability that we need in Afghanistan in order to undermine the drugs trade. The House should be unanimous in calling for Iran to stop such activities.
The hon. Gentleman underplayed the threat of Iran developing a nuclear capability. For almost two decades, Iran has concealed its nuclear programme. Five successive UN Security Council resolutions have urged Iran to engage, but it flatly refuses to do so. The latest IAEA report from Dr. El Baradei, published on 19 February, clearly demonstrates that there is a continuing unwillingness to engage, or to provide the information about the alleged studies with a military dimension that has been called for by the international community.
Some people pooh-pooh or dismiss concerns about Iran’s nuclear capability, but if it gains a nuclear capability it will inevitably invite a response from other countries in the region. That will lead to an arms race in the middle east, which is one of the surest ways of stepping towards Armageddon.
Mr.
Wallace: I do not underestimate the dangers of Iran having
a nuclear weapons system. However, it would be right to observe that the international
community
could not prevent North Korea, Pakistan or India from developing one. Moreover,
although Pakistan and India did so, the west continued to engage with them.
Iranians would ask what they had to lose. We must be clear about what they could
lose.
Bill Rammell: I agree. The thrust of our policy is about getting Iran to confront the choice that it faces and the direction in which it should go.
I welcome what the hon. Gentleman said in support of the state of Israel. However, to deny the responsibility of the supreme leader for what President Ahmadinejad said when he spoke of Israel being wiped off the map of the world and being wiped from the pages of time—I believe that such sentiments are abhorrent, and I hope that all hon. Members share that view.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of there being no preconditions for talks. For a country that has a track record of being enormously well-versed in playing for time and stringing out the process so that the fundamental problem is not tackled, talks without preconditions are a real concern. I support the view of President Obama that we cannot just engage in talks for talks’ sake.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) made a helpful and well-informed contribution. He rightly focused on the influence that Iran wields in the region. Iran arms, trains and funds Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian rejectionist groups. That is wrong, it is destabilising, and it is dangerous. It is of enormous concern not only to us, the United States and the rest of the international community but to every Arab leader to whom I have spoken. It is a fundamental reality that we cannot deliver peace in the middle east without Iran changing its behaviour. We need to work with other Arab states on the matter.
I respect the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), but on the question of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran delisting, he engaged in a rewriting of history. I know, because I was at the centre of things, that the Government went out of their way to ensure that the decisions of our courts and of the European Union Court of First Instance on delisting were respected; it was others in the EU that we needed to win over—something that we did subsequently.
The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions about Camp Ashraf. He will know that the US handed responsibility for it to Iraq on 1 January. The high commission for refugees and the International Committee for the Red Cross are involved, and the US received assurances from the Iraqi Government about the continued well-being of residents. We will obviously monitor the situation.
The hon. Gentleman asked a specific question about a visa case. That is a matter for the Border and Immigration Agency, but if he writes to me or to the Minister for Borders and Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East and Saddleworth (Mr. Woolas), we can provide a response.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) made an important contribution
on human rights in Iran. We must remember that Iran is one of a handful of countries
that still execute juveniles; more than 140 are on death row. Iran has a draft
law before the Majlis that would bring in a mandatory death sentence for the
crime of apostasy. With such alleged crimes being treated in that way, Iran
has no right to be respected for its human rights record.
This
has been an important debate. We want to work with Iran and we want a peaceful
relationship with the country, but the problems that exist must be resolved,
particularly the nuclear issue. Without a resolution, the region, the entire
middle east and the wider world will have major problems. That is why we believe
that Iran faces a choice. I and the Government urge Iran to engage with the
international community and to take the benefits that are available through
the substantive offers that are on the table. It should seek those benefits,
but to do so Iran has to respond to the genuine concerns that exist.
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Paddy Tipping (Sherwood) (Lab): What recent discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on Iran’s nuclear programme.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Bill Rammell): The Foreign Secretary and other Ministers regularly discuss Iran and its nuclear programme with our European Union counterparts. The EU has consistently been at the forefront of the international response to the Iran nuclear issue. The E3 plus 3 reaffirmed its unity and commitment on 4 February to achieving a diplomatic resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.
Paddy Tipping: I am grateful for that reply, but will the Minister ensure that those European discussions link closely with the potential of the new President of the United States, who seems to hold the possibility of a more flexible and open approach towards Iran?
Bill Rammell: We very much welcome the US Administration’s willingness to engage directly with Iran, which I think is what my hon. Friend was referring to. However, no one should be in any doubt that President Obama has made it clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. Iran has to make a choice between, on the one hand, the very generous E3 plus 3 offer and a transformed relationship with the international community and, on the other hand, continuing on the path of confrontation, increasing isolation, and tougher and expanded sanctions.
Mr. Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con): When the Secretary of State meets the US Secretary of State next week, what will he be able to tell her about what further steps the EU is going to take, given that the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran has now enriched enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon?
Bill Rammell: The US is reviewing its position with regard to Iran, and we are discussing the issue. However, as I have made clear, President Obama has made it clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. We all need to work together to force Iran to confront that fundamental choice: on the one hand, engagement and all the benefits that it can bring or, on the other, increased isolation.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): Does the Minister not agree that this might be a good opportunity to launch the idea of a nuclear-free middle east, which would involve the non-development of nuclear weapons by any existing states in the middle east and, of course, nuclear disarmament by the only nuclear-armed state in the region, namely Israel? Does he not also agree that this year’s forthcoming non-proliferation treaty preparatory committee, or prepcom, would be a good time to launch such an initiative?
Bill Rammell: I am sure that my hon. Friend would welcome the fact that this country and this Government are the most forward-leaning of the nuclear weapon states in terms of disarmament. We need constantly to reiterate that. We are also very committed to a nuclear-free middle east and have consistently urged the Government of Israel to sign up to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state.
24 Feb 2009 : Column 138
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con): The possible formation of a Government under Mr. Netanyahu is a matter of some concern in the context of the Iranian nuclear programme. Will the Minister and EU Ministers impress upon any Government headed by Mr. Netanyahu the vital importance of restraint and of working in concert with the EU countries and the United States, and that his Government should not contemplate any unilateral action?
Bill Rammell: Let me make it clear to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we have consistently been 100 per cent. committed to a diplomatic solution. Nevertheless, we face a serious challenge in respect of Iran. The whole international community needs to focus Iran on the choice that it faces.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet) (Lab): Carrying on doing what we are doing and expecting it to have a different outcome would seem to be folly. What we are doing now seems in no way to be slowing down the Iranian nuclear programme. If we are to avoid the accusation in two years’ time that we allowed the world to drift into a nightmare, how do we and our EU partners take things to the next level in applying pressure on Iran? In particular, those in the Arab world have just as much to lose from a nuclear-armed Iran, so how do we get them to join us?
Bill Rammell: My hon. Friend makes an exceedingly pertinent point. In all the discussions that I have in the middle east, there is significant concern, among the Gulf states and other middle east states, about the position of Iran. We need to maximise the consensus and force Iran to face the choice that is before it. The United States Administration have rightly said that they are willing in principle to open a direct dialogue with Iran. We need to reinforce that. We also need to maximise the unity and get Iran to the point where it makes the choice that is necessary.
Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh) (Con): The latest report from the IAEA states that Iran has now stockpiled more than 1,000 kg of low-enriched uranium. If Iran continues at this pace, it will be a matter not of if, but when, it actually has a nuclear weapons capability. Can the Minister therefore assure the House that the EU will now finally muster the will to impose the key sanctions that the Prime Minister first announced back in 2007 on investment in Iranian oil and gas?
Bill Rammell: The European Union, as I argued earlier, has been at the
forefront of those internationally arguing for and urging sanctions. The latest
IAEA report is one of real and serious concern. It underlines the reasons why
we have a lack of confidence in that Iran has not responded to the IAEA report
and is not allowing legitimate access. We need to keep up the argument that
that is what we rightly expect Iran to do.
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Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): What assessment he has made of the implications for UK defence policy of recent Iranian missile development.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Hutton): We routinely assess the military capabilities of other nations’ armed forces, including those of Iran. Iran is attempting to improve its ballistic missile capabilities; we continue to monitor these developments very carefully indeed.
Angela Watkinson: I thank the Secretary of State for his reply, but how worried are the Government about the potential supply of Fajr-2 missiles from Iran to Hamas and what would be the implications for regional security, including the safety of our own troops?
Mr. Hutton: Iran should stop meddling in the affairs of the middle east. That is what it should do. The supply of armaments to Hamas in Gaza is profoundly unwelcome and must stop. We have made an offer to try to help the interdiction of those missile supplies and we stand ready to do that. We have no information to suggest that the capabilities that the Iranians are seeking to acquire pose a threat to UK forces, but Iran’s growing interest in developing ballistic missile technology goes far beyond what is and can ever be justified in terms of Iranian self-defence, so we are entitled, along with our allies, to keep a very close eye on the continuing malign influence that Iran is playing in the middle east.
23 Feb 2009 : Column 12
Ms Dari Taylor (Stockton, South) (Lab): What attempts have the Government made to speak with Iran about the possibility of it signing, or at least seeing the value of, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty?
Mr. Hutton: We should certainly continue to discuss those matters with Iran. It is quite clear that Iran is continuing to take steps to seek to acquire a nuclear weapons programme. We must do everything we possibly can, with our international allies, to ensure that that never happens.
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): What assessment has the Secretary of State made of possible Russian involvement in arming Iran, in particular the stories that the Russians might be providing the Iranians with anti-missile missiles?
Mr. Hutton: We do have concerns about the suggestion that Russian ground-to-air missiles might be provided to the Iranians. As part of trying to secure the defence of Iranian nuclear installations, that would certainly be a very unwelcome development. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have had discussions with Russia about those matters, and continue to do so.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East) (Con): Within the last few days, it has been revealed by the British ambassador to the United Nations that in 2005 the Iranians offered the British a deal whereby they said:
“We stop killing you in Iraq...you allow us to carry on with our missile and nuclear programme.”
That deal was rightly rejected. This is, I believe, the first time that a senior British official has spoken about an Iranian admission of direct involvement in killing British service personnel. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that is also his understanding of that situation?
Mr. Hutton: I do not think that there is any doubt that, in recent years,
the Iranians have been assisting various groups in Iraq to attack British forces.
That is totally unacceptable. Iran should keep its nose out of Iraq and other
countries. Iran has a legitimate set of interests in the middle east, but it
has no right whatever to involve itself in the internal security situation of
other countries. Its role in assisting those groups to kill British forces is
one that we will never forget.
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Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—( Helen Jones.)
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): On 13 January, I stumbled across a copy of The Wall Street Journal. An articled headed “Tehran’s strip club” reported something that is widely known across the Atlantic in the United States but has not had much oxygen, or light shed on it, in the United Kingdom either in the media or in Parliament. Nevertheless, it relates to our security policy, and our attempts to combat terrorism and have high standards of banking.
I discovered that Lloyds TSB had pleaded guilty to the Attorney General’s Department in the United States to doing things in London to circumvent US sanctions against Iran. Not only The Wall Street Journal, but many other journals report that Lloyds TSB has entered into what is described as a deferred prosecution agreement with the US federal authorities, whereby it has already paid $300 million to those authorities by way of a fine. That was done not with a view to settling the matter, but to entering into an agreement with the federal authorities to make full disclosure of what is known in the industry as “stripping” in relation to money that came from Iran via London and got into the United States by the falsifying of documents in London. This is a very serious matter. The US Department of Justice and the district attorney concerned have done a favour not only to the United States but to the wider international financial community and us in the United Kingdom by detecting that operation.
As I have said, there is no disagreement or debate about the matter. Lloyds TSB has acknowledged fully and unreservedly that it was involved in the practice. However, it made that declaration after being discovered. Lloyds TSB was certainly using the practice, which is illegal in the US, between 2001 and 2004, but never acknowledged that until being challenged after 2007. Indeed, in the period up to 2007, Lloyds TSB used similar practices in relation to moneys that came from Sudan, which were stripped here in London and then got into the US financial and banking system.
What was the purpose of such a complicated process? I inquired about that. It would seem that Lloyds—and, regrettably, some other financial institutions here in London—helped Iran’s rogue banks to infiltrate the US. The Iranians needed American dollars, sometimes to purchase things within the US borders, but also to channel other moneys through US banks to third countries or other parties demanding payment in dollars. All the evidence suggests that at least some of the money was destined to be used to purchase dual-use materials or technology, as part of the Iranians’ desire to increase their weaponry and develop weapons, to the disadvantage of the international community.
The
system worked like this. The UK branches or subsidiaries of the Iranian banks
would send electronic messages via what is described as the SWIFT banking payment
system, which would go to Lloyds. Employees at Lloyds in London would then re-key
the data into a new SWIFT message, carefully removing any reference to Iran
or its banks. Employees at the British bank called the process “stripping”,
as I have already said.
The US sophisticated screening operations and software would normally have flagged
up concerns, but as the transfers came from a respected British financial institution,
the alert system did not operate. As I have said, that is agreed ground, and
Lloyds TSB has acknowledged it. The Iranians also benefited sometimes from overnight
deposits in the US, taking advantage of favourable interest rates.
“may have been used to purchase raw materials for long-range missiles.”The US authorities are now in a race to track down the ultimate destinations of those moneys and their precise origins. The district attorney’s office has made it clear that he fears some of the funds
I also regret to tell the House that it is not just Lloyds TSB that is involved. Since starting to delve into the issue, I have discovered that Barclays is having to co-operate with both the US Department of Justice and the district attorney, apparently in relation to similar transactions. Regrettably, the Royal Bank of Scotland has indicated that ABN Amro, which it bought earlier this year with our money, is also being investigated by the US Department of Justice about a similar issue.
On 21 January, I raised this matter at Prime Minister’s questions, and the Prime Minister undertook to look into the matter and to write to me. I asked him how on earth this action could have been taken in London by Lloyds TSB, a British financial institution, to get around US sanctions, and how Lloyds TSB staff could have falsified documents—not my words; that is the admission—to get round those sanctions. Bearing in mind the fact that the United Kingdom has boasted about the need for a strict regime of banking transparency across the membership of the United Nations in order to combat terrorism, how could this have happened in the United Kingdom without there being a breach of UK law? I asked what regulatory bodies such as the Financial Services Authority, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Bank of England and the Treasury, and our security and intelligence services, had been doing about it.
On 29 January, the Prime Minister wrote to me in reply to my questions. He said:
“The position with regard to the penalty levied against Lloyds TSB is set out in the statement by the US Department of Justice of 9 January 2009. There is nothing further I can add in relation to the agreement reached between the US authorities and Lloyds TSB which is a matter between those two parties. You asked why the Bank has not been prosecuted in the UK regarding this matter. The US action against Lloyds TSB concerns past breaches of US sanctions. We can only prosecute in the UK in relation to breaches of UK law.”
In my view, the Prime Minister has missed the point. After 9/11, the United Kingdom led the call for transparency across the United Nations, and many of us are proud of the diligent work of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the then United Kingdom ambassador to the UN, who led the sanctions committee. I had assumed, as had other hon. Members, that we had the most rigorous regime of scrutiny and oversight of our banking and financial sector, in order to frustrate illegal transfers across countries in breach of United Nations sanctions. I think that the Prime Minister still thinks that that is the case.
I had assumed, because of all the posturing from the Dispatch Box by successive
Ministers about Iran exporting terrorism, and Defence Secretaries acknowledging
that
many British soldiers had been killed by ordnance emanating from Iran, that
significant sanctions were in place. For a long time, all of us—particularly
Her Majesty’s Government—have been concerned about Iran’s desire
to develop missiles and nuclear weapons to a point that we believe will threaten
our interests. I find it fantastic that it is not in breach of United Kingdom
law for officials at Lloyds TSB in London to falsify documents. Even if I am
wrong about the sanctions and that none existed at the time, there must surely
be an offence relating to the falsifying of documents.
I am concerned that there is no indication of any attempt by the regulatory bodies to which I have referred to investigate this matter, or of any serious attempt to find the law in this matter. I felt, from the tone of his letter, that the Prime Minister went on to slap my wrists. He said:
“Contrary to the assertion that you made in the House, the US case against Lloyds TSB has not involved accusations of money laundering. Therefore there is no suggestion that Lloyds TSB has contravened UK anti-money laundering legislation.”
I was slightly irritated by that, so I thought I would look up the definition of money laundering. I had assumed that it was quite an old term, but I found that it was apparently invented by The Guardian newspaper at the time of Watergate, so it is a relatively recent one. Money laundering is, I discovered,
“the practice of engaging in finance/financial transactions in order to conceal the identity, source and/or destination of illegally gained money”.
The Prime Minister’s thesis is that at the time of this action, the UK did not have sanctions against Iran in place; apparently we have had them only since early 2007, which will no doubt feature in the Minister’s brief. The Prime Minister thus seems to think that this is not a matter for the UK authorities, but I believe that money laundering is.
Money laundering is something that has had to be combated—both in principle and, I think, in law—for a number of years. We are parties to an organisation known as the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering; it is based in Paris and is primarily known by its French name—Groupe d’action financière sur le blanchiment de capitaux. We signed in 1996—it was revised in 2003—and agreed to criminalise money laundering and to enable the authorities to confiscate the proceeds of money laundering. Countries are required to ensure that their banks
“report certain suspicious financial activities to the appropriate financial regulators and law enforcement authorities.”
There is also something known as the suspicious activities report, to which even Members of Parliament are subject. Lloyds, of course, was hardly going to declare its own wrongdoing, but the UK has an obligation under FATF membership to bear down on such activities. That, however, we have singularly failed to do. Will the Minister kindly address that point in his reply?
The biggest potential payoff is that Lloyds must now disclose fully to the US authorities all the details of these wire transfers originating in Iran and help the CIA and the FBI to track them to their final destinations. I would like to be assured, however, that, at least from now on, the UK authorities will say they also want full disclosure.
Before I move on from the Financial Action Task Force, I want to emphasise the fact that it places a duty on banks to know their clients. Lloyds TSB has not used that as a defence in any case, but there is no doubt that the particular FATF agreement to which the UK is party requires us to ensure the highest standards of banking. The UK has clearly failed in that regard and we should be ashamed of that. It is acutely embarrassing to the UK, particularly to the Foreign Office, which, metaphorically speaking, beat around the head those states that were somewhat reluctant after 9/11 to adopt the required transparency.
I probed and probed to the best of my ability on this matter, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I indicated to you that I felt that things had not been properly reported. I discovered through use of a computer that there had been one or two references to this issue in the UK press and in Parliament, which I shall allude to. In particular, I discovered that a man named Conal Walsh had written in The Observer on 8 October 2006:
“The Financial Services Authority is urgently scouring Britain's banking system for evidence of Iranian terrorism funding following an alert from the US authorities. The move comes after officials at the FSA were shown American intelligence indicating that suspicious Iranian funds were being funnelled through the City of London and other financial centres.”
Apart from that report of 2006, however, there is no indication that the agencies to which I referred earlier have really done anything. I think I am entitled to ask the Minister what—if the Observer article was correct—the FSA found.
On 26 June last year, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer
“what steps are planned to be taken through the Financial Action Task Force to ensure that certain Iranian banks cannot abuse the international banking system to support proliferation activities and terrorism.”
In her reply the then Treasury Minister, the hon. Member for Burnley (Kitty Ussher) actually referred to “anti-money laundering”, which I thought quite interesting. She said:
“The Financial Action Task Force... has expressed concern that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s lack of a comprehensive regime for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism... represents a significant vulnerability within the international financial system.”—[ Official Report, 26 June 2008; Vol. 478, c. 466W.]
It was the Minister, not I, who referred to money laundering. Again, however, there was no indication of what was subsequently discovered.
On 24 November, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks asked the Chancellor
“what assessment he has made of the implications for UK financial institutions of the decision by the United States administration to ban Iran from undertaking u-turn financial transactions”—
apparently, that is the technical term for some of the activities to which I referred earlier—
“involving US financial institutions.”
The new Minister, the hon. Member for Dudley, South (Ian Pearson), replied:
“The U-turn licence enabled Iranian entities to have indirect access to the US financial system—including through UK financial institutions. Revocation of that license will mean financial institutions worldwide can no longer route payments for the benefit of Iran through the US.”
“We are not aware that UK financial institutions made any significant use of the U-turn licence”.—[ Official Report, 24 November 2008; Vol. 483, c. 951W.]
Perhaps the Minister will confirm this later, but I should have thought that both morally and legally, under UK law and because of our international obligations, we had a duty to adhere to the best practices of international banking. Even if at the time of these practices by Lloyds TSB there was no Order in Council or statutory instrument making the activity specifically illegal in the United Kingdom, surely through our lack of intervention we were acquiescing in a serious breach of our international obligations.
I have referred to the deferred prosecution agreement, which is a legal document. The agreement reached between the Department of the United States Attorney General and Lloyds TSB admits that from 2001 until 2004 Lloyds
“falsified the business records of banks in Manhattan by engaging in a systematic process of altering wire transfer information”—
“ to hide the identity of its clients.”
Lloyds had not owned up to that activity, although it had ceased to engage in it in 2004. It was rumbled only because in 2006 the diligent US authorities had embarked on an investigation of the relationship between the Government of Iran and two New York entities. It was during that investigation that they stumbled across evidence that Lloyds
“was engaged in the illegal transfer of funds into Manhattan on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks.”
Regrettably, it seems that they also discovered that other UK financial institutions might be involved in the practice.
The authorities discovered that Iranian business men were looking for high-quality American electronics. They had to act stealthily. They sought special parts coveted by Iran and especially by those seeking to make roadside bombs to kill United States troops in Iraq. That seems to have been the position. When the US Attorney General was asked whether these moneys were being directed towards terrorism, he said, “Actually that’s why we need the full disclosure. We want to know where this came from and where it was going to.” If the United States has not, as of this afternoon, fully discovered and had declared to it the totality of this criminal act in the United States, what confidence can I have, as a Member of the House of Commons, that our FSA, our security and intelligence services, the Bank of England and the Treasury have the slightest notion of what has gone on? I have no confidence about that. All the evidence suggests that there has been wilful ignorance and a washing of hands on the part of these agencies.
These
were not random acts, nor were they a mistake; they were not undertaken by rogue
individuals. It is indicative that Lloyds TSB knowingly set out to break out
United States law and condones the action of a large number of its employees
acting on its behalf. That could have happened only with the permission of people
at the highest level. One internal Lloyds TSB document said that transactions
from the London branches of Iranian banks should be processed in “the normal
way”, which meant removing information that would tie them to Iran—this
is all according to the agreement that Lloyds has now entered into with the
US authorities.
Lloyds eventually dedicated specific employees to scrubbing the Iranian transactions—I think there was even an instruction book on how the employees dealt with that. One of the main questions on which the United States authorities are focusing is whether the money went to terrorism. I, too, want to know the answer to that, and I am entitled to know it, given that, apparently, I and others in this House have sent our armed forces into conflict situations where ordnance is coming from Iran.
In summary, I ask the Minister to address the following points. Will he tell us precisely to what extent this has been examined by the Treasury, the Bank of England, the FSA, SOCA and our security and intelligence services? I guess that he will not tell us about the last of those, and that goes to the heart of the problems with this place—there is no oversight of the security and intelligence services. The ridiculous Intelligence and Security Committee is not a parliamentary Committee; we do not even know, and we not allowed to know, whether it is even trespassing on this issue. That is a further indication of why we need a proper parliamentary Committee. Perhaps we could also create a precedent—perhaps the Minister will indicate whether the Intelligence and Security Committee has looked at this. If it has not, will he invite it to do so?
I have focused largely on Iran, but some $20 million came from the Sudan, through this process, to the US. As has been indicated, this practice went on until 2007—I do not know whether it is a coincidence, but that was when a statutory instrument was passed here. That was probably the cut-off point. It rather indicates that there was full knowledge of and consent about this grave matter by people at a certain level in Lloyds—they were watching all the time. I want the Minister to tell me specifically whether it is lawful for a UK bank to falsify documents in the UK—let us forget about the US on that particular point.
Obviously, this was a systematic process; people were prepared to do this and it was sanctioned at the highest level in Lloyds TSB. One of the things that we have discovered over the past few weeks is that people do not do things for nowt—clearly, bonuses would have been paid to these people. I would like the Minister to say—if he would not mind—whether or not bonuses were paid to the staff and managers involved.
Over the past three or four months, the sums of money that have been discussed in this place are beyond belief—not billions, but trillions—so a mere $300 million may appear small change. But to most of us, it is a very serious matter. That is the sum paid to the US authorities by Lloyds TSB as an interim payment. It is no exaggeration to say that that is our money, which is not to say that the US authorities were wrong to demand it. Therefore, we have a right to know what happened. There was criminal wrongdoing, and the response by the UK has been pathetic. I am disappointed with the Prime Minister—not because he wrote the letter, but because he should have told the Treasury that it had to look into what happened. I will not let him get away with washing his hands of this issue; it is a very serious matter. It makes us a laughing stock around the world, it will prejudice the reputation of reputable financial institutions in this country, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) on securing this debate and bringing this important matter to the attention of the House. I intend to make only a brief contribution.
We live in a morally ambivalent age, and nothing will change that. But what on earth was a British bank doing, doing business with Iran? It was a shameful performance by Lloyds TSB. As the hon. Gentleman rightly points out, the $300 million fine is not coming from a magical printing press. It is shareholders’ money and, as the taxpayer, we are the shareholders, so it is our money. We need to know exactly what was going on.
All this happened a few years ago. Since then, we have had a bail-out of the banking sector, in which Lloyds TSB received the full endorsement of Government to take over HBOS, with this appalling act in the US hanging over its head. We can ask Lloyds TSB and its senior board members—they are still in place—how much money is enough. How much money do they need to make? Why did they do business with Iran? After all, we know full well that in Iran homosexual men are routinely murdered and hanged from cranes. Lloyds TSB makes great play of its corporate social responsibility. It claims to value its people. Well, in this matter, its corporate social responsibility does not amount to a hill of beans.
As the hon. Gentleman so rightly pointed out, we do not know whether the transactions conducted via Lloyds TSB have resulted in the loss of life of young American men and women who are meant to be our allies and whom we are meant to support. Lloyds TSB still has a huge amount of explaining to do on this issue and I hope that the Minister can address those issues when he winds up.
I do not expect the banking sector to be a paragon of virtue. Indeed, we have seen over the past year that it is very far from that. But it is one thing to make bets on derivatives and overseas mortgage markets. It is another to do business with the regime in Iran. Lloyds TSB not only did business with that regime, but actively falsified the evidence and covered it up. It cannot claim that an innocent mistake was made, or a rogue manager was responsible and the bank had no idea what was happening. It was sanctioned at the very highest levels of one of the UK’s leading plcs. And at that time it was one of our leading plcs—it was probably one of the top large companies quoted on the stock exchange. Again, I agree with the hon. Member for Thurrock that that is of critical importance.
The hon. Gentleman also highlighted the very important fact that Lloyds did business with Sudan as well as with Iran. Month in and month out, hon. Members and Ministers come to this place to express concern and disgust about what is going on in terms of the persecution of minorities in Sudan, yet one of this country’s leading banks was doing business there. I imagine that Lloyds bank thought that it was a sweetener to secure further business. I do not know for sure, but I have strong suspicion that if the people involved had not been caught they would have continued to grow their business in Iran.
I
accept that there are issues to do with dual jurisdiction, and that we live
in a global marketplace where there will always be conflicts and problems such
as have been set
out today. However, I shall conclude my brief comments by repeating my question
of a few moments ago—that is, how much money is enough?
I always thought that the people who run our major industries, and most politicians, were fundamentally decent people tasked with making hugely important decisions. A lot of people do not like the decisions that our leading business men and politicians take, but they put themselves in such leadership positions, and that means that they have to take difficult decisions and stand by them. The British people are fair minded: we may not like the decisions that are taken, but we recognise the right of the people involved to make those decisions and the reasons why they take them.
However, I doubt that anyone in this country can fathom how probably decent people thought that it was legitimate to do business in Iran. On the scale of things, and compared to Lloyds’ global portfolio, the amounts of money involved are quite small. It did business in Iran because it wanted to earn a little extra. Again, how much money is enough? How much profit did it need to make? Frankly, it is not surprising that our banking sector is in its current mess if such morally ambivalent people are in leadership positions.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Timms): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) for drawing the House’s attention to this very important issue. He referred to the letter dated 29 January that he received from the Prime Minister, but let me say a word about the settlement that has been reached. My hon. Friend described it as an interim settlement, and I think that he took that to mean that there could be a further fine.
My understanding is that that is not the case: the matter has been settled and Lloyds has signed a deferred prosecution agreement, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock rightly said. That means that the matter is settled as long as Lloyds sticks to the agreement for the next two years.
Andrew Mackinlay: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Timms: It is rather early in my response, but I will give way.
Andrew Mackinlay: It is early in his response, but the Minister is uttering the spin given to him by Lloyds TSB and the Treasury. He says that the matter has been settled, but it will be final only if there is full disclosure. The settlement is contingent on Lloyds TSB coming up with the fine and full disclosure, but that process has not been concluded yet. The US authorities will draw a line under the matter only when they are satisfied that is has been concluded. I do not feel comfortable that some people involved in criminal activity might get off scot-free, but that has not been agreed yet. The deferred prosecution is precisely that—deferred.
Mr. Timms: Indeed, and as long as Lloyds sticks to the agreement for two years there will no further fine or action. The disclosure process to which my hon. Friend referred is not about to start, and neither did it commence with the agreement on 9 January: as I shall explain in a moment, it happened well before that.
I want first to explain a little more of the facts of the US case; secondly, to explain how the case fits into UK law and international best practice at that time—I hope to answer some of my hon. Friend’s questions—and thirdly, to explain more generally the actions that we have taken to improve the transparency of inter-bank payments and to deal with the financial threats posed by Iran.
The US Department of Justice’s statement of 9 January 2009 set out that Lloyds TSB committed a violation of the US International Emergency Economic Powers Act—legislation under which the US Executive are able to prohibit transactions in response to an “extraordinary threat” arising outside the United States. Of course, the US has had sanctions in place against Iran since 1979, so now for 30 years. They have been progressively tightened since then due to growing concerns about the Iranian regime’s sponsorship of terrorism, as my hon. Friend said, and, more recently, its nuclear programme. However, until November last year, US financial sanctions against Iran included a special licensing arrangement, to which my hon. Friend referred, known as the U-turn exception, which allowed some US dollar transactions that involved Iran to be processed through US dollar clearing in New York.
Those transactions were allowed if, first, they were sent between two non-US banks; and secondly, if the transactions did not require the debiting or crediting of an account of an Iranian individual or entity managed on the books of a US bank. The way that my hon. Friend referred to that slightly gave the impression that a bank had to apply for such a licence. My understanding is that that was a general licence that could be exercised if those two conditions were met. In other words, the exception applied if the Iranian link to the transaction did not touch the US or a US bank directly. It was designed to prevent US sanctions completely shutting off Iranian access to the dollar, given that oil transactions are globally denominated in US dollars. There was quite a wide interest in Iranian oil sales having such access.
Andrew Mackinlay: The Minister might recall that I raised the issue in the context of a reply to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), where the then Minister, our hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, South (Ian Pearson) indicated in his reply that there was not much activity. I raised it in the House to demonstrate that, in my view, there has not been due diligence by our authorities, because demonstrably a lot of activity was going on, but the reply, diligently given by a decent Minister but fed to him by the machine behind, indicated that there was nothing much in this. I do not want to labour the point by going back over my notes, but the Official Report will show that the tenor of the reply was that there was no problem. Well, there was a problem, and part of my submission to the House is that there has not been due diligence by the other agencies, not even to scratch the surface of this matter.
Mr. Timms: The point that I want to underline is that the general licence allowed banks to conduct such transactions with Iran in those circumstances.
The
US Department of Justice’s statement sets out that, between 1995 and 2007,
Lloyds TSB, in both the UK and Dubai, made changes, as my hon. Friend
has explained, to SWIFT messages—messages on the international worldwide
funds transfer network, which are known in the US as wire transfers—worth
more than US$350 million that involved principally Iran, but also Sudan, as
he has mentioned, and, I understand, Libya as well. That involved removing payment
originator information from some inter-bank payment instructions, so that payments
would not be identified by US correspondent banks as originating from countries
subject to US sanctions. The infringement related to removing originator information,
rather than to the transactions themselves. That is quite an important point.
The infringement had to do with the removal of that information.
I understand that Lloyds TSB ceased removing payment originator information from Iranian transactions in 2003. I think that my hon. Friend said 2004; anyway, it was round about then. It is perhaps worth noting that the US banks did process the payments, even though the SWIFT messages did not contain originator information. My hon. Friend suggested that that was because they thought that if the payments were from a UK bank, everything must be fine. My hon. Friend said that ABN AMRO had also been doing such things, too. I was not aware of that; I do not know whether that is correct, but I have no reason to doubt it. It was not a UK bank at the time. There is at least a question that ought to be raised about how the transactions were processed by the US banks, even though the messages did not contain originator information.
As we have heard, as a result of the breaches of US law, Lloyds has agreed to pay a fine of $350 million. Lloyds has notified the markets of that, and made provisions in its accounts last year for the payment of the penalty. Given its hedging arrangements, the £180 million provision in place in its accounts will, I understand, cover the full size of the penalty. It is important to stress that the US investigation is specific to breaches of US sanctions law; I know that my hon. Friend was concerned about that point. The US investigation does not allege that Lloyds TSB breached international sanctions, or that it facilitated terrorist finance, proliferation finance or money laundering. Indeed, the deferred prosecution agreement between the US authorities and Lloyds records that subsequent screening of the payments routed through the US between August 2002 and the time when the accounts were closed found no matches with names on the US terrorist or weapons of mass destruction watch lists. The US Department of Justice has acknowledged that Lloyds’ co-operation with it has provided substantial assistance to the New York District Attorney and the Department of Justice.
My hon. Friend, perfectly fairly, asks why no one has been prosecuted in the UK over the issue. As he says, he raised the matter with the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House on 21 January. He has anticipated the answer; it is that we can prosecute only for breaches of UK law, and not for breaches of US law. As I have set out, the US case against Lloyds TSB concerns breaches of US sanctions. I certainly have not seen evidence of breaches of UK law in this case. I have seen no evidence of breaches of international sanctions, money laundering rules or terrorist finance rules. That is consistent with the findings in the US case, which is specific to breaches of US sanctions.
It is worth noting that the US imposed comprehensive financial sanctions on Iran after the Iranian revolution in 1979; we remember some of the circumstances. However, United Nations and European Union sanctions against Iran have been much more recent, and more targeted. Given the history of relations between the US and Iran, it is not a surprise that breaches of US-Iran sanctions did not necessarily amount to breaches of UK or European Union law.
Given the concerns that my hon. Friend raised about the way in which changes were made to the messages, I shall say a little more about how international banking practice relating to the transparency of inter-bank payments has developed. Decisions on what payment information should be included in SWIFT messages has, in the past, been regarded as a commercial matter for the banks. The decision was dependent mainly on what was required, technically, to allow the SWIFT messaging system to be used successfully. However, new international standards for measures to counter illicit financing were introduced following the 11 September terrorist attacks. The Financial Action Task Force, to which my hon. Friend referred, made nine special recommendations on terrorist financing in 2001, one of which—special recommendation VII—covers wire transfers. It aimed to correct the lack of transparency in inter-bank payments, which was recognised as a potential weakness in the system. Special recommendation VII calls on countries to
“take measures to require financial institutions, including money remitters, to include accurate and meaningful originator information...on funds transfers and related messages”.
That recommendation was agreed in 2001, and was followed up by technical work on how it should be implemented, which continued until 2005. Once the technical work was complete, the European Union decided to implement special recommendation VII at the Community level. That was done through the Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2007, known as the wire transfer regulation, which was taken forward during the UK presidency of the EU in 2005. Following an agreement by the Council of Finance Ministers in, I think, November 2006, the regulation came into effect in January 2007.
The EU wire transfer regulation requires payments to contain complete information—name, address and account number—on the payer. To remove payment information, as was done in the case that my hon. Friend rightly highlighted, is not permitted under the regulation.
Until the regulation took effect in January 2007, there was no requirement in UK or EU law for banks to provide full payer information. So the actions of Lloyds TSB involving transactions before January 2007 do not constitute breaches of UK or EU law. And, as I pointed out, Lloyds stopped removing payment information from Iran transactions in 2003, well before 2007 when the legal obligation to do so under UK law and EU law came into effect.
Actions
to tighten the law have been complemented by efforts by the banking organisations
to raise standards of best practice. The Wolfsberg group of international banks
has set out what it calls messaging practice standards to ensure that the payment
system is not abused. Wolfsberg also acted to encourage SWIFT to make technical
changes to the messaging system that will increase the
amount of data that accompanies certain kinds of payment. Those changes are
expected to come into effect at the end of 2009.
In addition, the Basel committee on banking supervision has been considering the issue at the request of the international regulatory community, and will shortly publish its own statement on the steps that banks should take to increase transparency in international payments.
Let me conclude by setting out the Government’s approach to financial restrictions against Iran. We have been at the forefront of international efforts, in the Financial Action Task Force and the European Union, to strengthen controls on terrorist finance and to improve the transparency of inter-bank payments.
Andrew Mackinlay: I apologise for interrupting. I indicated in my speech that part of the issue was the embarrassment to the United Kingdom and inconsistencies with our foreign policy. I listened carefully to the Minister. It took the United Kingdom and the EU six whole years to implement that financial agreement, yet we were bragging and boasting and beating people about the head around the world from 2001 through the United Nations, in a committee headed by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, to implement it without delay. It is a revelation to us. It shows how we—our Foreign Office and the Treasury—were deficient in due diligence on the matter. It is a disgrace.
Mr. Timms: Let me give my hon. Friend a little more information about the process that was followed. His characterisation of it is not quite right.
The FATF special recommendation to which I referred was agreed in October 2001, but the specific requirements on banks were not clarified until the Financial Action Task Force agreed an interpretive note in the middle of 2005. My hon. Friend asks why it took so long. That is a fair question. That was the period that the FATF took to achieve and agree that interpretive note. The European Union then acted quite promptly and a proposal was made in July 2005. As I have said, ECOFIN approved the regulation in November 2006, and the regulation took effect on 1 January 2007.
I shall set out a little bit more information on UK policy. We have been at the forefront of international efforts, including action to deal with the threats posed by Iran’s nuclear programme and by its weak anti-money laundering and terrorist finance controls. We continue to work closely with the US and other international partners to utilise a dual-track strategy towards Iran of pressure and engagement. We have taken a leading role in negotiating international financial measures to maintain pressure on the Iranian Government and to protect our financial systems from abuse.
Key measures that we have taken in the past few years include negotiating an international asset freeze against two Iranian banks—bank Melli and bank Sepah—negotiating FATF statements calling on states to protect their financial systems from money laundering and terrorist finance risks emanating from Iran, negotiating an EC regulation requiring banks to undertake enhanced due diligence on Iranian transactions and adopting new domestic powers in the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 to allow us to impose financial restrictions in response to external money laundering, terrorist finance or weapons of mass destruction proliferation risks.
Taken
together, those measures and others constitute a robust package of measures
to protect our financial sector, which places the UK at the forefront of international
action to tackle the threats posed by illicit financing linked to Iran. I hope
that that presentation of the history over the past few years has illuminated
some of the concerns to which my hon. Friend has drawn the
attention of the House. I hope that my hon. Friend welcomes the robust stance
that the UK Government have taken and will continue to take on those matters.
House adjourned.
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the new United States Administration on future policy towards Iran.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown): My Lords, the Foreign Secretary met the new US Secretary of State on 3 February for detailed talks on Iran. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s political director took part yesterday in talks with his US opposite number and officials from China, France, Germany and Russia. FCO officials both here and in Washington have been in close touch with the new Administration. We will continue to work closely together on this issue.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Is not the firm, pragmatic approach of President Obama exactly the policy that we should be fully supporting? Must not human rights always be central to our considerations, and what are the latest developments concerning the British Council? Does my noble friend agree that underlying economic and political weaknesses in Iran suggest that there may be more room for leverage in negotiations than is sometimes supposed? Is not our task to win Iran, with its great history, into playing a positive role in the region, rather than to humiliate it?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, my noble friend raises a series of important interrelated points. President Obama has made it clear that he indeed wants fundamentally to revisit the US relationship with Iran, and I think he will be guided by exactly the pragmatism that my noble friend suggests. He said that it will take several months, and that is right, because we want to make sure that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater—and the baby is the very important E3+3 negotiation on the nuclear programme. Yes, we need to broaden the contacts and discussion with Iran, but we need to indicate that there is no backing off from our fundamental requirement that it does not proceed with a nuclear weapons programme, and, indeed, that we secure improvements on issues such as human rights. In that regard, the closing of the British Council office is a very sad setback.
Lord
Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we on
these Benches must congratulate Her Majesty's Government on their success: the
new American Secretary of State
5 Feb 2009 : Column 758
Does the Minister agree that those who say that the worst thing we could do to President Ahmadinejad and his hard-line regime is to open a dialogue and make it quite clear that we do not intend to work to overthrow the regime, as his regime thrives on confrontation and the belief that the whole world is against Iran; but that encouraging those in Iran who are not fully behind this rather nasty regime is exactly what we should be doing?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, I say in a mischievous spirit similar to that of the noble Lord’s opening remarks that it takes a Liberal Democrat to notice these small points about pecking orders. Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for it. On his second point, he is correct in that any broader engagement with the regime in Iran must undermine that regime’s tendency to fall back on populist, nationalist arguments of isolation, yet the real challenge for the Obama Administration is to find credible interlocutors in Iran—not people who posture but those who will deliver real policy results from such a dialogue.
Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, I should perhaps declare an interest in this topic. I re-established relations with Iran in 1986 after an interval of many years only to have those relations broken off two weeks later, on Valentine’s Day, by the issuing of the fatwa about the book published at that time. That indicates that the matter should be approached with considerable precaution. I remember a 1920s railway timetable for Chevening which disclosed in a list of embassies in London that then only three embassies represented Asian countries: Japan, China and Persia. Does that not underline the importance of trying to establish terms with that Government while warning against the hazards that lie ahead?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord offers wise advice. President Obama has indicated that it will take some months and a lot of consultation to arrive at any new policy initiative but that this revisiting of policy should not be mistaken as in some way going soft on the nuclear issue. It was again confirmed in the talks on 3 and 4 February to which I referred that the Americans want to move prudently to broaden the contact in a way that does not compromise the fundamental objectives which we continue to seek and which have remained constant from the previous Administration to this one.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, has the Minister made any representations to the authorities in Iran about the virtual closure of the British Council’s operation in that country? What lessons does he draw from the launch of a new missile in Iran earlier this week?
Lord
Malloch-Brown: My Lords, on the first point,
the Foreign Secretary is making, or has made, a Written Statement on this. The
British Council was forced to
5 Feb 2009 : Column 759
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, I agree fully with the Question asked by my noble friend Lord Judd, but does the Minister believe that the success of our policy towards Iran will depend largely on its policy in relation to us? Secondly, does he believe that, with the forthcoming presidential elections, there is likely to be a better policy arrangement between us and Iran?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, we have to see what the elections bring. We have all read the interesting reports of reform candidates regathering their courage and their organisational capacity to run, as they believe from opinion polls that they have support. That has been covered in the media. However, it is probably very imprudent to comment in this House on Iranian elections, as I suspect that we would handicap the horses that we would like to see win.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, with regard to the other worthy policy objectives concerning our relations with Iran, will the noble Lord include an exhortation to the Iranian head of state that he should no longer express the wish and desire that the state of Israel be expunged?
Lord
Malloch-Brown: My Lords, I think that the whole
world has agreed that what he said is absolutely abhorrent; he has said it not
just once but on many occasions. It goes back to my earlier point: however much
we want to find a better dialogue with Iran, we have to find credible interlocutors.
The President, in many of the things he says, raises doubts about whether he
is such an interlocutor.
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Mrs. Nadine Dorries (Mid-Bedfordshire) (Con): What recent assessment he has made of Iran's nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Bill Rammell): We remain seriously concerned about Iran's nuclear activities. It is difficult to believe its claim that its nuclear programme is intended for purely peaceful purposes. Iran continues to enrich uranium and to increase its capacity to enrich uranium in defiance of five UN Security Council resolutions. It is failing to co-operate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency. We will continue to work closely with international partners to persuade Iran to suspend enrichment and to engage in substantive negotiations, leading to a diplomatic solution to the issue.
Mrs. Dorries: We are all aware that Iran trains, supports and arms Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Given that it is reported that Iran will be nuclear-ready by the end of this year, what steps are being taken to ensure that Iran does not enable its favoured terrorist groups to make use of its impending nuclear capability?
Bill Rammell: That is a real issue of concern. We remain fundamentally committed to resolving it diplomatically and to the E3 plus 3 dual-track strategy, but that means, bluntly, that Iran has a stark choice. There will be increasingly tough sanctions to persuade the Iranians to change course. However, if they take the alternative path, there can be a dialogue that will lead to full negotiations if the Iranians suspend their enrichment-related activities. That is the argument that we are putting forward. That is the offer that we are seeking to get Iran to engage with, and we will be looking to work on that with the new US Administration when they are formed next week.
Paddy Tipping (Sherwood) (Lab): Given that the Russian Government have some relationship with the Iranian regime and considerable nuclear expertise, what discussion is my hon. Friend having with Russian counterparts to bring forward in Iran a nuclear programme that is for domestic purposes only?
13 Jan 2009 : Column 123
Bill Rammell: That is a regular feature of our discussions with Russia. As part of the E3 plus 3 process, an offer is on the table from Russia to secure on an external basis Iran's reported civil nuclear needs. That is why I strongly urge Iran to take the offer that is on the table, engage and find a resolution to the issue.
Mr. Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): The middle east region is a powder keg at the moment. Given the basis on which the overthrow of Saddam Hussein took place in Iraq, what assurances can the Minister give the people of the United Kingdom that the information that he is giving about Iran is accurate and dependable?
Bill Rammell: It is clear that Dr.el-Baradei from the IAEA has reported on Iran four times since 2008. It is also clear that Iran kept its nuclear programme hidden from the world for two decades before it was exposed in 2002. There are outstanding issues for which the IAEA has asked for an explanation but those explanations have not been forthcoming and that is why I believe strongly that the situation is very serious indeed.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con): The Minister talked about the need for tougher sanctions and we agree that such sanctions are needed to complement what we hope will be direct United States engagement with Iran. But will he not share my dismay that we still have no EU-wide ban on either export credits guarantees or on new investments in Iranian oil and gas? Have the Government now given up hope of achieving EU agreement on such measures, and if not, when does he think they will be agreed?
Bill Rammell: No. We have been at the forefront of arguing coherently
and strongly that to make this dual-track strategy work, the sanctions need
to be as robust and effective as possible. The EU, at our prompting, has gone
beyond the rest of the international community, for example, freezing the assets
of more entities, including Bank Melli. But I take nothing off the table. We
will keep trying to ensure that the stick of sanctions is as strong and effective
as possible to encourage and persuade Iran to take the fork of diplomacy.
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Mr. David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): What recent assessment he has made of potential military threats posed by Iran.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Hutton): We routinely assess the military capabilities of other nations’ armed forces, including those of Iran.
Mr. Jones: Last month, Iran conducted a major naval exercise in the gulf of Oman, involving more than 60 warships and military aircraft. Next month, the first shipments of liquefied natural gas will start sailing from Qatar to Milford Haven, and in due course LNG from the Persian gulf will account for some 25 per cent. of the gas consumed in this country. To what extent does the Secretary of State recognise the military threat of Iran to the security of British energy supply and to what extent is the UK working with its allies and the Gulf Co-operation Council to counter it?
Mr. Hutton: I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. He will understand that we take a close interest in these matters. Iran has the ability to contribute not just to greater global security, but to greater global energy security. Unfortunately, it is not doing that, so its influence remains malign and it poses a significant threat not just to global security, but to regional security. Naturally, we keep all those matters under careful review and we discuss all these concerns closely with our allies in the Gulf and elsewhere, but it remains the policy of Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that energy supply routes through the gulf of Aden remain open, and we have forces in place there to achieve just that.
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): I am unsure whether my right hon. Friend will have seen yesterday’s report by Steve Erlanger in The New York Times. It stated:
“Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the last two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs.”
That came from The New York Times, not any other source. Does the Secretary of State agree that Iran’s involvement in the current crisis, including the smuggling of Fajr-3 missiles into the hands of Hamas, is a great danger and that the warm relationship between the leadership of Hamas and the current anti-Semitic leadership of Iran also indicates just what a poisonous role Iran is playing generally in the region and further afield?
Mr. Hutton: I did not see that edition of The New York Times,
unlike my right hon. Friend. I shall just repeat my earlier comment that Iran’s
influence in the region is malign. We want the situation to be transformed,
and we are actively pursuing better dialogue and engagement with Iran, but there
can be no regional
2 Jan 2009 : Column 5
security as long as Iran continues to support not just terrorist organisations in the middle east, but, for example, Taliban elements in Afghanistan, and as long as Iran continues to have active and close links with some of the terrorists and insurgent groups in Iraq. That has to change. Iran has suffered as a result of the isolation that her foreign policy has brought upon her, and that can change if Iran changes her attitude and approach to these issues. Her Majesty’s Government are clear about the need for peace and stability in the middle east, and that is not helped by the current policies of the Iranian Government.
Mr. Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre) (Con): Iran can pose such a local and strategic threat because of the technological assistance on missile defence and missile development that it continues to receive from both China and Russia. Can the Secretary of State tell us what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to try to stop that flow from China and Russia?
Mr. Hutton: I do not want to go into the detail of that point on the Floor of the House; I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand. We share his concerns about the possibility of defence forces in Iran being enhanced by such technology and we are in discussions with several nations to try to prevent that from happening.
Mr. Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con): The news coming from Washington, from President-elect Obama, is that he seeks, and is willing, to engage with Iran. Is that a lead that the Government might want to follow?
Mr. Hutton: We have diplomatic relations with Iran. As I said earlier, we seek an active engagement and dialogue with the Government of Iran, because they are potentially significant partners for peace and security in that region of the world, which is so sorely troubled by the absence of security, but that engagement has to be on the basis of respect for other nations’ borders and frontiers and the right of other nations to live in peace and security. Currently, the Iranian Government do not respect those principles, and until they do, Iran will remain an international pariah state.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East) (Con): May I associate those on the Opposition Front Bench with the tribute paid to our service personnel who have died or been wounded since the House last met?
In the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones), the Secretary of State seemed to accept that Iran could, if it chose, pose a major naval threat to our fuel supplies. Does he accept that in countering such a threat our attack submarine fleet would be crucial? For that reason, will he consider restoring the promise that the Government made in 2004 to build eight Astute submarines?
Mr. Hutton: We have looked very carefully at all these matters. As the
hon. Gentleman knows, we are currently envisaging building seven Astute submarines,
and that remains the Government’s position. I do not dispute the important
role of the ship submersible nuclear fleet in securing those trade routes, and
I can assure him that, along with other naval assets from this country and our
NATO partners, we retain credible naval forces designed to ensure that our energy
supply routes, especially from the middle east, remain open.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/
cmhansrd/cm090112/debtext/90112-0001.htm#0901122000007
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which states have reported to the UN Sanctions Committee impediments under their domestic law to the implementation of the assets freeze on designated persons and entities in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 1737 of 2006, 1747 of 2007 and 1803 of 2008; and whether the UK has offered assistance to any such state in this regard.
David Miliband: Member states' reports affirming their implementation of the measures contained in UN Security Council resolutions 1737 of 2006, 1747 of 2007 and 1803 of 2008 are publicly available online at:
http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1737/memberstatesreports.shtml
The 1737 Iran Sanctions Committee has never found it necessary to investigate any impediments under any member state’s domestic law concerning implementation of the assets freezes as a result of these reports.
The UK works with other states to provide assistance on the implementation
of asset freezes under the UN sanctions against Iran through bi-lateral discussions
and multilateral groups, such as the EU and the Financial Action Task Force.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090507/text/90507w0008.htm#090507112000092
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs with reference to the answer of 15 September 2008, Official Report, column 2185W, on Iran: nuclear weapons, if his Department will assess the effect of (a) EU and (b) UN sanctions on the Iranian (i) economy and (ii) nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes.
David Miliband: There are no plans at present to issue a formal study on the effect of EU and UN sanctions on the Iranian economy and nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes. However, we regularly monitor the impact of sanctions on Iran.
Our assessment is that UN sanctions have made it more difficult for Iran to procure items for its nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes. Sanctions continue to affect parts of the Iranian economy, particularly through the disruption of the international operations of a number of Iranian companies and those Iranian banks listed in the sanctions. Anecdotal evidence from sources inside Iran indicates that sanctions have increased the inconvenience and general cost of doing business.
EU sanctions, which implement and go beyond UN measures, have had a similar
effect on a larger number of individuals and entities.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090430/text/90430w0005.htm#09043032000043
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether it is his policy that suspension by Iran of its uranium enrichment programme should be a precondition for negotiations on its nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.
David Miliband: The UK fully subscribes to the E3+3 group of countries’
dual-track strategy, which makes clear that Iran must suspend its enrichment-related
activities, as required by five UN Security Council Resolutions, before full
negotiations can begin. Iran needs to demonstrate the exclusively peaceful nature
of its nuclear programme. We and our E3+3 partners will continue to try and
persuade Iran that negotiations and transparency present the best route to resolving
this issue.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090427/text/90427w0009.htm#09042735000058
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs with reference to the Statement during the Prime Minister's address to the US Congress that Iran should cease its threats and suspend its nuclear programme, what steps the Government is taking to secure this objective.
30 Mar 2009 : Column 859W
Bill Rammell: The Government remain committed to the E3+3 dual-track
strategy—of pressure and engagement—to address the Iran nuclear issue. On the
engagement aide, the US has been clear about its desire for a relationship based
on “mutual respect” as President Obama made clear in a message to the Iranian
people on 19 March 2009. The E3+3’s generous offer of June 2008 remains on the
table, which offers Iran a wide range of political and economic benefits, together
with all it would need to develop and operate a civilian nuclear programme.
On the pressure side, the UN Security Council has agreed five resolutions on
the issue, three of which put in place sanctions against Iran. The EU has gone
beyond these to put in place further measures. We have been clear that if Iran
chooses not to accept the US and E3+3 offers, further, tough measures will follow.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090330/text/90330w0007.htm#09033013000013
Mr. Hollobone: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent assessment he has made of the state of diplomatic relations with Iran.
Bill Rammell: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said many
times that the UK would like to have a positive and constructive relationship
with Iran—a relationship which is based on mutual respect and is not a prisoner
of history. We believe that we have important shared interests in Iran's neighbourhood,
including stability, security and economic development in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, we and the rest of the international community have significant and
legitimate concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions, its activity in the region,
and its repression of its own people. Iran must address these if our relationship
is to move forward. The Iranian authorities are also responsible for unacceptable
harassment of our staff in Tehran, both UK based and Iranian—pressure which
has forced the British Council to suspend its operation in Iran, and which obstructs
the legitimate activities of our embassy. We have raised this with the Iranian
authorities on numerous occasions, and we regret that they have done nothing
to address this.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090323/text/90323w0006.htm#09032312000073
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to the answer to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) of 5 March 2009, Official Report, column 1747W, on Iran: nuclear power, what further sanctions he has considered pursuing at the United Nations.
Bill Rammell: The E3+3 made a generous offer to Iran in June 2008. This offer remains on the table. The offer presents Iran with an opportunity to transform its relationship with the international community and enjoy many significant benefits, if it suspends its enrichment programme and negotiates.
However, in the event of Iran failing to take up this opportunity and continuing
to disregard its international obligations to the UN and the International Atomic
Energy Agency, we will be forced to consider further measures, including the
consideration of further significant sanctions through the UN.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090323/text/90323w0006.htm#09032312000073
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the Government's policy is on the application of financial sanctions against (a) individuals, (b) entities and (c) organisations involved in Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme; and if he will make a statement.
David Miliband: The Government fully support the application of financial and other sanctions against individuals, entities and organisations that are involved with, or support, Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Five UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs) require Iran to suspend enrichment related activities, three of which impose sanctions. The UNSCRs require states to freeze assets owned or controlled by individuals, entities and organisations involved with, or supporting, nuclear activities in Iran. They must also exercise vigilance over Iranian banks.
The Government also strongly support the Common Position and Council Regulation
adopted by the EU which implemented UNSCR 1803 in full. Indeed, the EU went
beyond the UN by extending financial vigilance against Iran, including a further
autonomous asset freeze on individuals and entities involved in Iran's nuclear
and ballistic missile programmes, but not specifically listed by the UN.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090316/text/90316w0008.htm#09031619000088
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received of breaches of the prohibition in UN Security Council Resolution 1747 against the sale, transfer or supply of arms or related material from Iran; and if he will make a statement.
David Miliband: I am aware of reports that Iran has breached UN Security Council Resolution 1747 by attempting to transfer arms-related material via the MV Monchegorsk, a Cypriot-flagged vessel.
We understand that the MV Monchegorsk was ordered into Limassol harbour by the government of Cyprus in late January, where it now remains. Cypriot Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou has said that the Monchegorsk was in “clear” breach of UN sanctions banning Iran from exporting arms and related material. Cyprus has dealt with the situation effectively and entirely in line with UN and EU requirements.
We continue to urge Iran to comply with international law. It is unacceptable
that Iran acts in breach of UN Resolutions and such action only serves to further
undermine international confidence in Iran.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090313/text/90313w0005.htm#09031364000066
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment has been made of the merits of imposing further (a) UN and (b) EU sanctions on Iran in light of Iran's failure to respond to UN Security Council resolutions demanding the suspension of its enrichment-related activities; and if he will make a statement.
David Miliband: We have supported five UN Security Council resolutions that require Iran to halt its uranium enrichment programme and co-operate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA's most recent report makes clear that Iran has done neither.
I strongly urge Iran to comply with these obligations by halting enrichment
and engaging with the E3+3. It can then enjoy all the benefits set out in the
E3+3's generous offer of June 2008. However, if it continues to refuse to co-operate
with the international community we shall do all we can to pursue further sanctions
in the UN and the EU.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090305/text/90305w0007.htm#09030548000011
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the evidential basis is for the assumption that Israel has nuclear weapons, as set out at page 14 of his Department's publication, Lifting the Nuclear Shadow: Creating the conditions for abolishing nuclear weapons.
Bill Rammell: Information in the public domain, has led to a widely
held assumption that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, though Israel has always
refused to either confirm or deny this. The UK has consistently urged Israel
to join the non proliferation treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090227/text/90227w0024.htm#09022737000234
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what occasions since January 2008 (a) he and (b) other Ministers in his Department have discussed with their Israeli counterparts Israel's possession of nuclear weapons.
Bill Rammell: Ministers have had no discussions, since January 2008, with our Israeli counterparts regarding their possession of nuclear weapons.
We have on a number of occasions called on Israel to accede to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state and also to the Chemical
Weapons Convention, and will continue to do so.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090223/text/90223w0081.htm#09022473000158
Gordon Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of Iran's level of co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Bill Rammell: We assess that Iran's level of cooperation with the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been inadequate in a number of critical areas.
The IAEA Director General's report of 19 November 2008 highlighted Iran's failure
to implement transparency measures including the Additional Protocol; provide
substantive information on their alleged studies with a possible military dimension;
provide access to the heavy water reactor at Arak on 26 October 2008.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090113/text/90113w0001.htm#09011457000026
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Prime Minister whether he discussed the Iranian state shareholding in the French state Uranium Enrichment Company during the visit of President Sarkozy on 8 December 2008.
The Prime Minister: I discussed a wide range of issue with President Sarkozy. I refer the hon. Member to the press conference I held with President Sarkozy and President Barroso on 8 December. A transcript is available on the No. 10 website at:
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page17733
A copy has also been placed in the Library of the House.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090112/text/90112w0012.htm#09011231000008
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Prime Minister what matters concerning (a) Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal and (b) Iran’s nuclear programme, he discussed in his meeting with his Israeli counterpart on 16 December 2008.
The Prime Minister: I discussed a wide range of issues with Prime Minister
Olmert.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090112/text/90112w0012.htm#09011231000008
Back to Proliferation in Parliament, Spring 2009
© 2009 The Acronym Institute.
Back to Proliferation in Parliament, Spring 2009
1. Mr. David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): What recent reports he has received on Iran’s nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.
3. Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington and Chelsea) (Con): What his most recent assessment is of Iran’s nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (David Miliband): The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report of 19 February shows that Iran continues to refuse to suspend its proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities and has not granted the IAEA the access that it seeks as required by five UN Security Council resolutions. We, and the international community, will continue to press for Iran to fulfil its international obligations and restore confidence in its intentions.
Mr. Jones: Does the Secretary of State agree that while President Obama’s recent outreach to Iran is welcome, diplomatic overtures must be backed by a readiness on the part of the United States and the EU to impose such further sanctions as are necessary until such a time as Tehran can demonstrate to the unequivocal satisfaction of the UN inspectorate that it has abandoned its ambitions to develop a military nuclear capability?
David Miliband: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his enunciation of the policy, which I think has support across the House. It is the so-called dual-track policy, which is that we should seek to engage with Iran, that we should make it clear that we have no quarrel with the Iranian people and that the choice of Government in Iran should be a matter for them. However, whatever the Government in Iran, they need to abide by their international responsibilities. If they refuse to do so, there are costs associated with that decision.
The
hon. Gentleman is right that there are responsibilities on the EU and the US,
but the responsibilities go wider. The international coalition, which is right
to fear an Iranian nuclear weapons programme, goes wider than the EU and the
US. Russia, China and the Gulf states
have responsibilities, too, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want
to join me in working to ensure that they are part of a global coalition against
an Iranian nuclear weapons programme.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind: With North Korea, it has proved useful to include its neighbours, Japan and South Korea, in the negotiations to discourage it from going down the nuclear weapons route. Should not Iran’s neighbours, particularly Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, be invited by the Security Council to join the negotiations over Iran, especially as the Iranians need to realise that those three countries might themselves go nuclear if Iran ends up as a nuclear weapons state?
David Miliband: Only up to a point. The multilateral negotiations are not being conducted under a UN framework—the E3 plus 3 is not a UN body, but it is recognised to have a global coalition behind it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might have an important point, which was at the heart of the E3 plus 3 offer agreed under my chairmanship last May in London. It concerns what will happen in the future if Iran ceases its nuclear weapons programme or restores the confidence of the international community that it does not have a nuclear weapons programme. There are important regional political issues about Iran’s legitimate interests in the region, but no discussion of those issues can take place without the involvement of the countries that he has mentioned.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and that the best way to prevent any ratcheting up of tensions in the region is to declare our support for a nuclear-free middle east? That would include Israel’s having to bring its nuclear weapons to a de-alert status and would help to promote the idea of disarmament throughout the region to bring about stability, rather than the obviously very great danger of the development of an arms race across the region.
David Miliband: We have done that for a long time. It is important to be clear that through the Iranian programme we face the danger of proliferation and the sort of domino effect described by my hon. Friend. Iran, of course, is a signatory to the NPT. My hon. Friend is right. Inherent in the idea of the drive towards multilateral disarmament, eventually including the global abolition of nuclear weapons—a commitment that every signatory to the NPT makes—is the idea of a drive towards a nuclear weapons-free middle east, too.
David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): At a meeting of the board of governors of the IAEA in Vienna on 2 March, the director general, Dr. Mohamed el-Baradei, reported, in addition to what the Foreign Secretary has said, that Iran continues to work on heavy water projects and that it declines to implement the additional protocol that is required of it. His recommendation was that a method should be found to find a way through by transferring these activities from national control to multilateral control. How does the Foreign Secretary think that that might be achieved in the short to medium term?
David
Miliband: I spoke to director general el-Baradei about
that issue when I met him at the Munich security conference. Inherent in the
idea that Iran has to win the
confidence of the international community that its uranium enrichment programme
does not have dual use is the notion that we are open to a range of ideas for
multilateral engagement with Iran over a civilian nuclear power programme—a
programme that, above all, is destined only for peaceful use.
That is why we have strongly supported Russian support and investment in the civilian Bushehr nuclear power plant. There is a range of options on the table, as long as Iran is clear that it cannot pursue a programme that fails to win the confidence of those of us who believe that anything other than a solely peaceful programme—and one that has the confidence of the international community that it is solely peaceful—is ever going to be able to play any part in stabilising the middle east.
Mr. Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): As well as selling air defence systems to Iran, Russia has continued to block attempts by the west to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. What are the Government doing to ensure that Russia does not continue to block the sanctions process?
David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. I am sure that he will have seen, as I did, at least a report of the interview that President Medvedev did for the BBC on Sunday, when he stated unequivocally that Russia does not want see the development of an Iranian nuclear weapons capacity. That is why Russia has supported successive UN Security Council resolutions to that end.
The hon. Gentleman is also right that it is important to recognise the urgency of the matter and the need to make it clear to the Iranians that the American offer currently being developed and made represents the best chance that Iran will ever have of normalising its relations with the rest of the world, and above all with the US. The whole world can play a role in supporting American outreach in that regard. It is not only for Europeans but for Russians and Chinese as well to make it clear that this is the best chance that Iran will ever have to regularise its relationships with the rest of the region and the rest of the world, but that cannot be done while there is so much concern about its nuclear weapons intentions.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab): I wish a happy new year to Iranians here and around the world. The Foreign Secretary rightly talks about multilateral engagement with the Government of Iran. Does he agree that part of that process should also be multilateral engagement with the Government of Israel about its nuclear weapons, as that would build confidence among the Iranians that there is an equivalent process there?
David
Miliband: The multilateral basis of engagement with
the Iranians is first of all in respect of its NPT obligations. That is why
this is an IAEA process, as well as a UN process. The sort of confidence and
stability that I know that my hon. Friend wants to see in the middle east can
be achieved only if nations abjure the sort of rejectionist rhetoric that has
emerged from Tehran, which produces the sort of fears that can lead to a nuclear
arms race.
The other thing to say is that it is not only Israel that is worried about an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. If one talks to people from any Arab or Gulf state, one sees that there is a very high degree of concern among them for obvious reasons, given the tinderbox that is always the middle east. The last thing that it needs is a nuclear weapons arms race. In that context, we have a real opportunity, and responsibility, to bring old foes over the Israel-Palestine issue together on the Iranian issue. We believe that it is essential to move forward on the middle east peace process, but we must also recognise that there are also new coalitions to be built on the Iranian nuclear issue.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con): A moment ago, the Foreign Secretary spoke about the urgency of the process. Given that it is more than 12 months since the Prime Minister threatened new sanctions on Iranian oil and gas, and nine months since the E3 plus 3 made the offer to transform relations if Iran would suspend enrichment, will the right hon. Gentleman say today how much longer we are prepared to wait before we go back to the EU and the UN to ask for more sanctions? That would clearly show that we are taking both tracks of the dual-track process that he has described with equal energy and determination.
David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman asked the same question several times last year. I know that he shares the Government’s commitments on this matter, but I say to him—in the nicest possible way—that one very big thing has changed since then. For the first time in 30 years there is an American Government who want to open a bilateral channel with the Iranian Government and people. By any stretch of the imagination, that is a big change.
Given
that the whole world, as well as the American Government, is committed to seeing
that outreach take place— [ Interruption. ] I hear
an Opposition Member shout, “How long?” but the Americans have not
even completed their review yet, so let us hold our horses about that. It surely
makes sense to say that the Americans should complete their review and ensure
that the elements of their multilateral and bilateral outreach are clarified
for the Iranians. If the Iranians do not respond in a positive way, we can then
ensure that further steps are taken. If the hon. Gentleman pauses to think about
it, he will recognise that now is not the time to be rushing for more sanctions;
instead, now is the time to be backing the American outreach, which is a once-in-a-generation
opportunity both for us and for the Iranians.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090331/debtext/90331-0001.htm#09033132000012
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Mark Tami.)
Joan Walley (in the Chair): It might be helpful to hon. Members if I point out that I am using the clock on the annunciator.
Mr. Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre) (Con): I sometimes point out to the Whips that I follow a different clock, but they never seem to agree with me.
It is a great opportunity to have this debate on Iran. Perhaps this year more than any other it is vital to examine our policy towards Iran and consider where in our history we have failed, what we are really trying to achieve and whether we are going about it in the right way. I shall consider three different points: how to build trust, who to engage with and whether our current policies are working.
Over the next 12 months in Iran, there will be presidential elections, there is the potential for the first civil nuclear power station to come on line and there is the real and threatening possibility of enough nuclear material to make at least one nuclear bomb being in the hands of Iranians. If we consider those points alongside the fact that there is a new American Administration, a collapse in the oil revenues and a worsening security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I think that we would all agree that the short-term challenges are considerable to say the least.
I have been the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Iran for more than two years. In that time, we have heard from a whole range of experts on Iran—contributors from the US Government, ambassadors, academics and trade unionists. Some contributors were pro the current Iranian regime, some were against, and some just wanted to share their wisdom. Only last month, we met a delegation of Iranian MPs from the Majlis, and more recently we met the Syrian ambassador. I visited Tehran with two of my colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), in July and I am due to go again soon. Our meetings are well attended by all parties and those from both Houses.
It
is tempting to start with the usual speech about how historical and cultural
the country is. I have heard it many times and it usual predicates the tit-for-tat
rhetoric that we so often hear when dealing with Iranian issues. I think that
it is sufficient to say that Iran is an ancient cultural and strategic power
that we cannot afford to ignore or to fail in our efforts to improve relations
with. The new world order needs Iran to become not only a member, but a player.
Too many of our discussions about Iran are bogged down in the past. We should
start by recognising that Britain’s role in Iran over the past century
has, on balance, been more harmful than benign to many of the people of Iran.
We have
made mistakes. It was wrong for us to back Saddam Hussein in the horrendous
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Insult was added to injury when the indictment against
Saddam Hussein only dealt with his crimes against Iraqis; no mention was made
about the gas attacks on Iranian civilians and military forces.
Even though I was only eight at the time of the revolution and ten during the Iran-Iraq war, I was deeply struck on my recent visit in July by how that conflict dominates so much of Iran’s society today. The tragedy of our policy in the west is that we still do not see Iran as it sees itself, and we have not communicated enough for them to understand the way that we do see it. Too many people stopped the tape when the hostage crisis finished in January 1981, and as the Islamic revolution entrenched and western opposition hardened, it became in the interests of too many people in the US and Iran to maintain hostilities. Revolutionary hard-liners needed a bogey man to continue the momentum and consolidate their control inside Iran. The west wanted revenge for the loss of their placeman, the Shah. To this day, the revolution is used by many to justify policies on both sides. Such policies have failed to give Iran its place in the world and have also failed to ensure a stable middle east.
As a 38-year-old, it would be easy to feel old in Iran where the average age is 26, but, like most of its population, I just about have the luxury of youth when it comes to setting aside the past and focusing on the future. I have hopes for a richer, better Iran, just as I have hopes for a better Britain. So, let us talk about the future. In my dealings with Iranians, I have learned that the heart of the issue is trust. We do not trust them, and they do not trust us. Do they have cause to mistrust us? It is a matter of public knowledge that Iran helped us to bring down the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan. We have failed spectacularly to deal with the resulting explosion in the heroin crop that all too often finds it way on to the streets of Iran and its major cities.
Let us imagine what Iranian politicians feel when we try to do deals with so-called Taliban commanders whose day jobs are as drugs barons. However, when our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are killed by devices incorporating Iranian components, we rightly feel that Iran exports terrorism. On the nuclear issue, Iran suspended enrichment in 2004 in the hope that the United States would engage, but unfortunately it was snubbed. Iran might ask why it should do it again. There are numerous examples on both sides. Do I think that Iran will admit its role or that the UK Government will admit their failures? I very much doubt it. We often dance around the rhetoric, and many of us have met representatives from the Iranian regime and members, and have sat for hours listening to the tit-for-tat rhetoric with little getting done apart from drinking coffee. The choice is simple: we can dance around the matter, or we can move in favour of starting afresh.
How
do we build trust? We can start by accepting that whatever we think of the Iranian
Government, we must accept that they are a legitimate authority. Even among
Iranians who oppose the Islamic revolution or the current President, there is
an acceptance that the Government in Tehran rules by consent. We should not
engage in regime change or seek to subvert the Administration. If necessary,
we should be prepared to guarantee their security. We must recognise that Iran
has rights, while at the same time supporting all its peoples’ rights—and
by “all” I mean rights relating to faiths, genders and race. Iranian
rights and human rights can be compatible.
There are other issues that need resolving. At home, we are faced with pressure from some to de-proscribe the terrorist group the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq—or the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran. The PMOI group has been active in terrorism since the 1970s, both inside and outside Iran. We should not forget that in the 1970s, it killed a number of US citizens and supported the storming of the embassy in Tehran. As well as acting as Saddam’s death squads inside and outside Iraq, the PMOI has consistently waged attacks on the Iranian Government. As recently as January this year, the US Department of State reconfirmed the MEK as being a foreign terrorist organisation. I know that the UK Government support that listing and I implore them to keep the group proscribed, whatever it takes.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on obtaining the debate and I apologise for missing the first minute of it. We have been through this matter and had debates on the proscription of the PMOI, and universally the British courts and subsequently the European courts have decided to de-proscribe it. What evidence does he have that it continues to be a terrorist organisation?
Mr. Wallace: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the terrorism legislation of 2000, he will know that many of the court rulings are based on the legislation on proscribing an organisation. I think that proscribing is flawed. United States legislation is allowed to take on board whether the organisation still has the intent to cause acts of terror. Given that most of the leadership of the MEK and PMOI have not changed over a considerable period, it is not right to de-proscribe it. Of course, I respect the rule of law and therefore if the courts have said that, we have to follow the rules of the court. However, I implore the Government to reassess their terrorist legislation to ensure that when we proscribe organisations, we do so not just on the basis of what they seek to do at the current time, but on what they seek to do in the future and have done in the past.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con): My hon. Friend said that the PMOI has been involved in terrorism since the 1970s. The High Court in the United Kingdom has heard all the evidence. Some of us were present in court but did not hear all the evidence because some of it was heard in camera. So the court heard all the evidence, as has the European Court, which has concluded that since 2002, the PMOI—the MEK—has not been involved in terrorism. What possible justification does my hon. Friend have for the remarks he has made?
Mr.
Wallace: The statement I made in my speech about the activity
of the PMOI comes from the Department of State’s recent listing, in which
it gives its reasons for proscribing—[Interruption.]
I consider US intelligence to be important in making these decisions. Having
personally been involved in actions with the Provisional IRA and the IRA, I
recognise that the past is just as important as the future. I would be interested
to know
whether my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) voted for our
colleagues in Sinn Fein to receive allowances when the matter was raised in
the House. I suspect that—[Interruption.] That person
did not, given that he is presently not an active member of a terrorist organisation,
although I am sure that in the past he was. I would like to move on.
It is important that we recognise that the PMOI and the MKO represent a dangerous organisation at the very heart of Iran, no matter what people’s views are on the regime. In fact, the supreme leader himself was blown up by the PMOI and lost one of his arms, and the second President of the Iranian Republic was killed. Imagine what Conservative Members would think of any deal with the IRA, had it been successful in killing half the Cabinet in the Brighton bombing. We must recognise that there are terrorist groups in Iran that would not help the cause, let alone move it forward.
The second question is, who do we do business with in Iran? People often ask me that because Iran, which does not have a political system like ours—no parties, no party leadership—is often driven by personalities and factions. Some would like to posture around the Iranian President, and some Iran watchers are toying with the idea of waiting for a new, perhaps more moderate President.
From the outside, no matter what Presidents look like or say, we should remember that the nuclear programme has gone on under reformist and conservative Presidents. We should recognise that the Iranian constitution makes it clear that power in Iran is nearly always, and always has been, with the supreme leader. It is the words and actions of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that, in the end, can help forge a resolution. Constitutionally, it is he who controls the levers of the state—the courts, the media and the revolutionary guard—and even the President and Foreign and Defence Ministers must be vetted by his office.
My message to the new Administration in Washington and to the Government is to try to go to the top. Let us try to speak directly to the supreme leader. Let us ask him to put aside his role of speaking only to heads of Muslim countries, and to try to engage directly with the United States and to put aside historical preconditions, because that is the way to get some real resolution.
Perhaps because Iran is a revolutionary state, or perhaps because it is not governed by a party political system, parties, personalities and slogans take centre stage. Observers find it hard to distinguish gesture politics from real politics. A good example of the gap between official speak and actions is that in Iran it is illegal to have a satellite dish, but everyone has one. One can see them on driving down any road. As one diplomat once said, there is something very French about the Iranians.
If people believed every slogan, they would certainly think that they would be in danger going anywhere in Iran, but that is not the case. The Iranian people are friendly, approachable and engaging. We have to distinguish between slogans and reality. We are, perhaps, safer in Iran than in Saudi Arabia, so let us not get hung up on inflammatory statements made by the current President Ahmadinejad or on the death to America day, an annual event to which I have not yet been invited. If I can live with a Bobby Sands avenue outside a British embassy, I am sure that other people can live with other gimmicks.
Perhaps the real hints to where Iran is are in the writings of supreme leader Khamenei. On the subject of future engagement with the US, only last year he said to students in Yazd:
“However we have never said that the relations”—
“will remain severed forever...Undoubtedly, the day the relations with America prove beneficial for the Iranian nation, I will be the first one to approve of that.”
Regrettably, like several Islamic leaders, the supreme leader does not recognise the state of Israel, and that is a bad step for Iran and other nations. We must deal with today, and I agree with the right of Israel to exist. However, his words are not the same as the inflammatory language of the current President.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet) (Lab): Ayatollah Khamenei’s language might not be the same, but the hon. Gentleman has already said that he is the supreme leader, and that he is the one who influences everything that goes on in that country. If he does not agree with the inflammatory language of the President, why does he not do something about it?
Mr. Wallace: There are two things to say on that. First, Presidents come and go, and there is no history of supreme leaders intervening with Presidents. It would not be in the interest of the supreme leader domestically to do that. However, when it comes to determining the significance of the threat from Iran, we need to look to the supreme leader rather than the President. The man who has the authority to declare war is the supreme leader, not the President. The constitution will guide us as to exactly when we should be worried about statements by Iranian leaders.
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD): The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech. He has huge expertise in this area, and I want to ask his opinion. As he just said, the supreme leader has written that he would be open to engagement with America if it were to change its approach to Iran. Does he think that an opening-up to America and the west by Iran could potentially undermine the Iranian leadership and threaten its theological underpinnings and that, therefore, it might walk away, or does he think that it is more confident than that and that it is prepared to engage, even if that meant much greater opening-up to the west and interchange with it?
Mr. Wallace: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I would agree with the latter suggestion. The supreme leader recently made an exception to his rule and met President Putin. Although President Ahmadinejad may feel undermined—we must remember that he came to power on a wave of nationalism and cheap shots—the supreme leader has realised that his strategy has failed. Iran has been weakened, and it has not made any friends in the middle east. The arguments between Egypt and Iran over the Hamas-Gaza problem demonstrate that Iran has become less popular in the middle east than it was at the start of the presidency.
The
supreme leader is the one who can move things forward. I do not think that his
position would be weakened hugely if he made such an attempt. Of course, Iran
can always say no afterwards. It is the preconditions
to engagement that have often held up talks—the requirement that Iran suspend
its nuclear programme before talks, that kind of thing—and they do not
move the process on. I am hopeful and optimistic, but I do not underestimate
the threat to Israel from Iran. I am not trying to say that it is all a bed
of roses, or that the threat is a fiction—it certainly is not. There is
a threat to Israel from Iran, and we have to deal with it in short time, before
Israel exercises its right of self-defence.
Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech. In trying to build relations, gestures and actions are important, particularly in that part of the world. He will know that Iran’s uranium enrichment programme could eventually lead to nuclear weapons. Does he think that if this country, given its long-term non-proliferation objectives, were to put the Trident decision on hold, such a gesture would help Iran to further its future objectives on the weaponisation of its uranium?
Mr. Wallace: First, my understanding of Trident replacement is that it will still mean a reduction in the number of warheads, so it is a move in the right direction. Secondly, even if one were advocating the suspension of Trident replacement, that is not the same as advocating unilateral disarmament. I do not think that the gesture would work.
One could argue that western nuclear powers developed their weapons in the 1950s because of fears of instability. Certainly the French felt that it was vital for them to find their place in the world and achieve stability in what had been a very unstable Europe. Perhaps that is one of the factors that drives some of Iran’s neighbours to want nuclear weapons. Some may believe that a nuclear weapon will give them stability and a place at the top table. There are better ways of doing that, but, if my neighbours were Pakistan and Afghanistan, I would feel pretty unstable. I am sure that all of us would. However, the supreme leader is the man to do business with; history shows us that it is not the President.
What message can I give to Iran? What do the Iranian people need to hear from us to understand us better? First, the days of imperialism are over. Britain and the US do not want to make the Iranian people subjects, or to fill their country with spies and terrorists, which is often the first defence; we want Iran to be our friend. Iran must recognise that our fear of a nuclear bomb is borne of the very modern desire for stability in the region.
I often ask myself why we in the west are so close to Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, when Saudi Arabia gives to Christians, Jews and everybody else fewer rights than even Iran does, and is less safe for us than Iran. Why is it that, over the years, we have been so close to Saudi Arabia? I am not even sure that Saudi Arabia officially recognises Israel either, so the only answer that I can come up with to my question is stability. Saudi Arabia provides stability in the region, and if Iran recognises that stability is the answer, it will also recognise that in today’s west, we value that currency more than anything else.
Mr.
Jeremy Browne (Taunton) (LD): I am grateful to the
hon. Gentleman for giving way in what is an excellent speech. Do the Iranians
also have an incentive to engage
more with the west because President Ahmadinejad came to power on a wave of
desire from the overwhelmingly young population to see some of the material
benefits that people in the west enjoy? On the occasions on which I have been
to Iran, what has been most striking is that the anti-American rhetoric is a
far weaker impulse than the desire to own a Michael Jackson CD and a pair of
Levi jeans. If we could show the Iranian people that engagement with the west
was of financial and material benefit to them, and that it would allow them
to take their rightful place in the wider world, surely that would be a powerful
incentive?
Mr. Wallace: Yes, undoubtedly. If we had the time, economics, rather than sanctions and so on, would solve the Iran question, but, regrettably, we do not have that time. Ironically, one of President Ahmadinejad’s slogans when running for election was that he would refine more oil and give the revenue to the poor. Unfortunately, I think that he has replaced “oil” with “yellow cake”, because he now spends most of his money refining nuclear materials rather than benefiting his society economically. Interestingly enough, his popularity is not very high as a result.
Mr. Gale: A few moment ago, my hon. Friend said that stability was the most valuable currency in the west, and we recognise that. He implied that the Iranians should trade on it, but if stability was the most valuable currency in the west and we did not care about hanging people from the ends of cranes, and about human rights, we could argue that Saddam Hussein’s regime was stable and, certainly, that Robert Mugabe’s regime was stable. Is my hon. Friend in favour of that?
Mr. Wallace: My hon. Friend lets himself down with that sort of question. He has to answer the question of why in the middle east we have other allies that openly behead people in squares and do not respect human rights anything like as much as Iran does. We seem to do business with many of those countries at the same time. I said earlier in my speech that human rights are very important, but they are compatible with Iran’s rights and we need to help Iran to recognise that. They are compatible with Islam too. It is remarkable that we trade with some of those other countries. The longest-term threat, which one hears about in Iran if one goes to the country, is Wahhabi Sunni Islam, rather than the Iranian regime. I said to the Iranians recently, “When you used your influence beneficially in 2006 to create a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, you got closer to the top table than you’d ever been before. That is when you are powerful. When you use your influence the wrong way, such as with Hamas recently, you weaken yourself on the world stage and give no benefit whatever. It is a step backwards.” If Iran recognises that influence can be benign for all of us, it will obtain much more currency with western powers. That is my main message to Iran.
In
this day and age, powerful countries are not those that create mayhem or fear,
but those that use their influence to resolve conflicts. If they do that, they
can take their place in the world order, as they hope to do. Members from all
parts of the House are united on the policy of trying to develop better relations
with Iran, but we must be clear about our end goals and whether
the E3 plus 3 strategy works. I am always amazed that we have an overall strategy
towards Iran. The E3 plus 3 is the European powers plus the United States, China
and Russia, but the Chinese sell missile guidance systems to Iran, and the Russians
are currently refitting two attack submarines. That is a problem, so Iranians
see the E3 plus 3 as weak.
Under George W. Bush’s presidency, the E3 plus 3 was certainly leaderless; it did not have much strength behind its rhetoric. There is now a great opportunity for the United States, with a strong President who has a proper mandate, to help to develop clear leadership on policy towards Iran and not to give in to the neo-con wing that often undermined policy in the middle east and has been shown to have failed miserably. There is a real opportunity for President Obama to create a strong “3” to add to the E3, to enable us to achieve a resolution. We will know sooner rather than later—when the United States finalises its formal position on Iran—whether there are going to be preconditions for talks. I hope that there will not be. I have first-hand experience of having to talk to terrorists without preconditions; it is not easy and it is certainly not nice. However, some preconditions never work; they only play into the hands of people who do not want a resolution.
We must then examine the sanctions regime, because it strikes me that, historically, Iranians have been incredibly successful at trading. They were at the centre of trade routes for centuries, and they have already shown that, no matter what sanctions we try to impose on them, they are able to outwit them. They recently launched a satellite into space, they trade through Bahrain, which is opposite Iran and has a large Iranian ethnic population, and they are very canny traders. The problem is that sanctions help Iran’s religious conservatives, who demonstrate in their teachings and writings that isolationism is the way forward, because it keeps the revolution pure. With sanctions, we prevent the economic growth that would help to reform the way in which young people look at Iran today.
We must make it clear to our Government that next time we come up with sanctions, either they must be uniformly applied or we should not go down that route at all. That is the problem: we start with a sanction and China and Russia do not back it. Recently, Switzerland signed a big contract with Iran to obtain gas. There is a problem delivering the gas, but the contract showed that, when push came to shove, Switzerland did not hang around to stop helping the Iranian regime. Indeed, the Italian Foreign Minister recently urged Italian companies to do more business with Iran—trusty Italy comes to the rescue on another subject.
We
must understand that Iran is desperate to prove that it has rights in the world
and is able to demonstrate those rights. We must assure Iranians that we are
not going after control of their country: our rhetoric does not match our actions,
and we need to bring the two into line. Britain is known by the Iranians for
having soft rhetoric but hard actions, whereas the Americans are known for having
tough rhetoric but an inability to carry out their actions. There is challenge
to be met in respect of whatever policy we come up with, which will no doubt
be formed in response to the policy of the United States in the next few months.
I urge Her Majesty’s Government to come up with a clear road map that is
strong, reinforced and shows Iranians the way, but at the same time demonstrates
to Iran that we know that we could have done things better in the past.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet) (Lab): I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) on his interest in this subject and on getting this debate. However, I view some of his words a little sceptically and I wonder whether he is looking at the Iranian regime through rose-tinted spectacles. I agree that we need to engage with that regime, that we need to win the trust of the Iranian people and that we need a bigger carrot than we are currently offering if we want to get that engagement, but I found his comments rather conflicting. He said, for example, that we needed to engage with the regime, whatever we think of it and whatever actions it has taken in the past. Yet he does not want us to engage with the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran, because it may have past links to terror.
The hon. Gentleman asked the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), who is his hon. Friend and my parliamentary neighbour, whether he would have supported the Conservative Government’s talking to Irish terrorists if they had succeeded in killing members of the Front Bench. I remind the hon. Gentleman that they did; they killed Airey Neave a few feet from where we are standing now. To the credit of the last Conservative Government, they engaged with Irish terrorists and started the process that we were able to conclude. If violence is in the past, as it would appear to be with some of the organisations involved with issues in Iran, which are operating outside that country and have renounced violence, we have to engage with them and give them a voice, because surely that is what being members of a democratic society requires us to do.
I do not consider myself a specialist in foreign policy and I rarely speak on the subject in this House. But I became exercised about our relationship with Iran and its influence in the middle east as a result of a visit to Israel and Palestine last year. During that visit, I heard first hand about the influence that Iran wields, particularly over Hamas and, increasingly, in the north with Hezbollah. In return for providing resources to those organisations, Iran expects them to engage in continued violence against Israel. There is no questioning that. If I had been told that on my visit only by Israeli politicians, I might well have concluded that they would say that, wouldn’t they? But I was told the same thing by Palestinian politicians when I visited the west bank. Again, if those politicians in Palestine had all been members of Fatah or had links to it, I may have come to the same conclusion, because they have a dispute with Hamas. But I also heard it from Palestinian politicians with no links to Fatah and who are not beholden in any way to Fatah.
It is clear to me, from subsequent events—the actions that we saw as people tried to negotiate a ceasefire after the Israeli attacks on Gaza in January—that Iran is making its continued support for Hamas dependent on Hamas’s continuing to allow, or turn a blind eye to, attacks on Israel. While those missile attacks on Israel continue, the Israelis will continue to attack Gaza and the dispute and the awful violence that is happening at the moment will continue. We have to detoxify that whole area if we are to make any progress.
We were getting somewhere in the north. I visited Israeli settlers on the Golan, who were saying, “We will give up the Golan to Syria as part of a peace deal and, for the first time, we believe that a real peace deal with Syria is within our grasp. We can do a deal with Syria. We understand that giving the Golan back to Syria will be part of that deal. And we will go. We, the Israelis who occupy the Golan, will go as part of a real peace deal.” What has happened to that peace deal? Iran has exerted its influence again. It has started to try to build influence with Hezbollah and tried to make it clear to Syria that any continued relationship between Syria and Iran depends on Syria’s not making any progress with such peace negotiations. This is the reality of what I have called Iran’s toxic influence in the middle east. Until we detoxify that influence and get Iran to start engaging more positively and more constructively, we will never have a resolution to these problems.
How do we move forward? I mentioned to the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell) at Foreign Office questions a few days ago that Einstein said that it was madness for people to carry on doing what they are doing and expect it to have a different result. It is clear to me that what we are doing at the moment is not having the effect that we would like.
If I do not regard myself as an expert on foreign policy, I do regard myself as an expert on nuclear policy and nuclear energy. I can tell the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre unequivocally that the uranium enrichment programme in which Iran is engaged is unnecessary for peaceful use of nuclear energy in this world. I accept Iran’s right to have a nuclear energy programme. I support nuclear energy in this country and I see no reason why it cannot benefit countries throughout the world. I would be 100 per cent. behind our engagement with Iran in helping it build a peaceful nuclear energy programme. But it is not doing that. Iran now has enough uranium probably to build a bomb. It may not be able to construct the bomb yet, but that will come. It certainly has enough uranium to build a dirty bomb. Who can doubt, listening to the President of Iran’s words, that, in this world, an Iran with a nuclear bomb would be a nightmare that all of us and our children should do everything in our power to avoid?
We have to start tightening up the sanctions. The hon. Gentleman was right. We have to make some of our partners in the E3 plus 3 a bit more honest about those sanctions. Russia is helping Iran build one of its nuclear reactors and that has to stop. China is selling equipment to Iran that it should not be selling and that has to stop. Even in the European Union, Austria, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Greece are all putting their business interests in Iran before the interests of their citizens in the wider world. We need to deal with that in two ways: formally, within the EU, and by raising the rhetoric in those countries, so that the people there realise what their Governments are allowing to happen. I do not believe that the people of Austria, Greece and the other countries that I mentioned want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
We
must tighten up the financial sanctions. Our own Lloyds bank was found guilty
of—inadvertently or advertently I will not say—helping Iran launder
money to get past the sanctions. Now we own a big stake in that bank. If any
of those banks in which we, the
British Government, have a stake are found to be continuing to launder money
on behalf of the Iranians, that would be the same as the British Government
doing it. So it must stop.
We must tighten the sanctions to avoid Iran being able to get access to the financial sector and the City of London. I admit that we might have done slightly more harm to the Iranian regime by allowing its banks to become involved in the financial services sector over recent years, but we now need to ensure that they are excluded. We also need to tighten up our efforts through the United Nations and Europe.
I have decided to become involved in the debate for the reasons that I mentioned. We need to build trust with the Iranian people and we need a bigger carrot as well as a heavier stick. I encourage my hon. Friend the Minister and the Government to do more to involve the Arab nations in our effort to get Iran to engage constructively in the future, because they have as much, if not more, to lose from a nuclear-armed Iran as we have.
We need to tighten sanctions, and to make it clear to Iran that we are serious. We must explain our position to the people of this country so that they understand exactly how serious the matter is, and that taking action now will avoid the violence that will come if we are weak or lack resolve.
Joan Walley (in the Chair): Order. It may be helpful to tell hon. Members that I hope that we can start the winding-up speeches at 10.30. I see no problem with that, but I remind hon. Members so that everyone can speak.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con): I shall be brief. I had not intended to speak and came to listen, but having done so, I am moved to comment a little.
When introducing the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) described the regime in Iran as legitimate, by which I assume that he means that it was elected. Hamas was elected, but I do not recall the United States or the United Kingdom legitimising that regime on the basis that it was democratically elected, so I can only conclude that one man’s legitimacy is another’s terrorism.
The People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran and the National Council of Resistance in Iran have been consistently and variously described as terrorists by the British Government and others, and there is not much argument that they have engaged in terrorist activity in the past. Forgive me, but Jomo Kenyatta was a terrorist. Someone called Nelson Mandela was regarded as a terrorist, as were Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. But games move on, and if we are to look to the future of the middle east rather than the past, we must accept the fact that there are people of good will whose past is not admirable to us or even to some of them, but who have an important role to play. If we are talking about engagement, the time has come for the United Kingdom and European Governments to engage with those other organisations that are legitimate and have an interest in the democratic future of Iran.
The British Government fought furiously against de-proscribing the PMOI. They resisted the findings of the European Court of Justice and tried every which way not to de-proscribe it, as indeed did the European Council of Ministers. The Foreign Secretary recently attended a meeting at which I was present on the Upper Committee corridor. When I asked him whether the organisation should be proscribed, he told me that I did not know all the facts. I do not know all the facts. I am not privy to the secret files of MI5, MI6 or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre apparently is, the State Department.
Mr. Wallace: They are on the website.
Mr. Gale: If they were on the website, they would not be secret. With great respect, I suggest that secret files are secret, and not published on the website. Irrespective of whether I have been privy to those documents, the Court was; those MI5 and MI6 documents were made available to the judges.
Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD): I was privy to the discussions in the European Court of First Instance when the barristers representing the PMOI were repeatedly asked for that evidence, but it simply did not exist. We anticipated a long adjudication, but it came the next day, because there was no evidence to justify the continuation of the ban on the PMOI.
Mr. Gale: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. There is evidence and evidence, but our Foreign Secretary—who am I to doubt him?—said that the information existed. If it did, it was made available to the High Court, and I attended some of the hearings. Our High Court judges are not blithering idiots, but they came down clearly in favour of de-proscription and said so clearly in their ruling. As a result, to be fair, the Government de-proscribed the PMOI.
The same thing happened in Europe. Notwithstanding the best endeavours of the United Kingdom Government to try to use the French Government to oppose the de-proscription of the PMOI by proxy—the French Government are still opposed to de-proscription—but the Council of Ministers found in favour of de-proscription, so it has been de-proscribed. My understanding is that it is therefore no longer considered to be a terrorist organisation. The British Government’s secret service may regard it as such; the United States State Department may regard it as such; and for all I know, the Quai d’Orsay may regard it as such, but that does not make it a terrorist organisation today.
The PMOI and its supporters face a desperate situation in Ashraf city, where the Americans have handed control to the Iraqi Government on the understanding that the security of the residents will be maintained, but there are grave doubts. First, I would like an undertaking from the Minister on the record, in so far as he can give one—I appreciate that he may say that it is a matter for the Americans and the Iraqis, rather than us, but we have some influence in Iraq—that the Government will do everything to ensure that the residents of Ashraf city and the Iranians who are mainly supporters of the PMOI are secure.
Secondly,
there is the small matter of PMOI funds, which are still frozen in France. The
organisation has been de-proscribed, and the French Government are
acting illegally, so will the Minister use such influence as he has in the European
Union, particularly with the French, to ensure that those funds are released?
Thirdly, if we are to find a way forward, people must start talking to one another. Curiously, despite everything that I have said, I have no particular brief for the PMOI or the NCRI. I do not believe that they are the solution, but I believe that they have the potential to be part of the solution. I would like the PMOI, Pahlavi’s organisation and all those who wish to make a contribution to a genuinely democratic future for Iran to work together to secure what I believe we all want, irrespective of our position on the issue—free, fair, democratic and monitored elections in that country with respect for the outcome, whatever it may be. I would not want to predict at this stage what it might be. The people of Iran have a right to a democratic election, and then to adhere to its result.
Finally, will the Minister indicate whether the Government would look favourably on an application for a visa for Maryam Rajavi to visit the United Kingdom?
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): Like the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), I did not intend to take part in this debate, and I apologise for having to leave a few minutes early, so I shall have to read what the Minister says.
I want to concentrate on the narrow but important domain of human rights. The greatest condemnation of the mullahs’ regime should be reserved for their dreadful human rights record. I remind hon. Members that that state is probably second only to China in the number of people it kills by capital punishment, and there is an argument that it may kill more people than any other state. The hon. Gentleman referred to the way in which it conducts those punishments. Hanging people publicly from various capital equipment is horrific, and last Saturday’s Daily Mirror shows graphically the 59 people who were hanged in January.
Whatever else one thinks about Iran, it is a great nation. It is not Arabic, but consists of Farsi-speaking people. We should always respect it and want to work with it, but until it improves its human rights record, it is up there with the nations that I feel deeply about—including Sudan, Zimbabwe and so on—because of the way it subjugates its people.
As has been said, do not be a member of the opposition in Iran, because people who are have every chance of being arrested, imprisoned and subsequently hanged. Do not be a Baha’i. I was pleased to see early-day motion 937 on that issue, tabled by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik). Again, the Baha’i are being singled out for mistreatment, arrest and worse.
I was also pleased to see in today’s Hansard that the Minister has answered the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on how many representations he has made to Iran on behalf of Christians. He said that he had made more than 40 representations. Do not be a Christian in Iran. Those are minority religions, but they are important religions. If we were mistreating Muslims in this country, I would expect us to be held to account in the court of world justice. Iran does it, because it appeals to the mob, and that has to stop.
Mark Williams: Does the hon. Gentleman share what I am sure is the concern of the whole Chamber about the position on juvenile executions? The Minister, to his credit, has raised the issue and has had assurances from the Iranian ambassador that, in October 2008, there was a decree outlawing juvenile executions, yet there have been reports since then that that practice still happens Iran.
Mr. Drew: It does, and again there is no effective defence for people.
The other issue, besides human rights, is the failing Iranian economy. In a sense, the suppression mirrors the economic failings. I know that in these times, when the whole world seems to be in difficulties, we can perhaps exaggerate the difficulties in other parts of the world to make ourselves feel less worried about our own situation, but there is an economic crisis in Iran, and it has resulted in even more pressure from the centre to deal with any form of opposition.
Iran is, of course, an oil economy: as the price of oil has collapsed, it has been able to earn far less revenue. It also has very high inflation, and the public of Iran are therefore hit both ways. We know that there is great unhappiness. Anyone who studies Iran will know that there are regular street demonstrations, until they are put down. There is a lot of insurrection on university campuses, but of course the secret service ensures that that does not last long. Even within the regime itself, there is a split between the hardliners and the more liberal element, represented by Khatami. It is reputed that he will make another attempt to run for the presidency, but at the moment Ahmadinejad seems to have the support of the great leader Khamenei. That will probably mean that he is likely to win any election.
I shall finish by echoing the remarks of both my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) and particularly the hon. Member for North Thanet. There are concerns among those of us who would be quite proud that we have supported the Iranian opposition that we need to look at what is happening to the PMOI in Ashraf city. I ask the Minister to examine carefully what is happening now that the Iraqi Government have taken responsibility, to ensure that there is no revenge against the people there and particularly to ensure that they are not doing the bidding of the Iranian Government, because that would be a tragedy and a negation of some of the things that they have done.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet reminded us about the nuclear situation. Without the PMOI and the NCRI, we would not necessarily have known about the enrichment going on at Natanz. They did immeasurable good in announcing that to the world. That is where the process started of trying to get Iran to understand that it is not acceptable behaviour. I ask the Minister to consider that issue and to consider the general issue of human rights.
It is right of Parliament to look at parts of the world where the human rights record is abysmal. We should never be frightened to highlight such things. Even though we continue to talk and do business with people and we want to bring them into the great body of democracies, we can never do that until they improve their human rights record, so that it is at least tolerable. At the moment, the one that we are discussing is absolutely unacceptable.
Mr. Davey: No doubt. I was particularly interested in what the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) said about Iran’s negative influence on many parts of the middle east, which is a huge worry. I should say that it has not just been a worry with the current regime, as over the centuries, the Iranians have undertaken their foreign policy in that way. Rather than foreign conquest, which many Iranian rulers have never gone for, partly because of the geography that the regime is dealing with, the country’s mountainous nature, its supply lines and so on, Iranian leaders have tended almost to conduct their imperial ambitions by proxy. That does not make it right, but it is a typical approach by the Iranians, and one has to understand how they work, both historically and in the current regime, if one is to deal with them.
The only point that has not come out in the debate so far is the urgency of the Iranian question. Much of the evidence suggests that the Iranians could be close to being able to produce a bomb. Recently, we have seen reports saying that they have enough low-enriched uranium to build a dirty bomb. When I speak to people at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel and to the Foreign Office in this country, my impression is Iran could be a year, or perhaps two or three years, away from having enough highly enriched uranium to make the sorts of weapons that would be particularly threatening and destabilising, leading to the proliferation across the region about which everyone is rightly concerned. Even if they are not going to go to weaponisation by getting the highly enriched uranium and putting it in a missile, they will be near to what is known in the terminology as break-out. They could keep within the rules of the non-proliferation treaty, but within three months, get themselves weaponised and break out in the way other countries have done in the past. The potential for them to get to that threshold creates a dynamic, particularly with Israel but also with other countries, that is very destabilising, so this is not just a theoretical discussion. It is something that we could be dealing with as a country and as a world very soon.
The
question is how we approach the issue. There will be two major events in the
next six months that relate to that question. The first and most important is
the conclusion of the review undertaken by the new President of the United States.
We are told that later this month the Americans will decide their new policy
and tell us all about it. Clearly, that is critical in how we develop our policy.
The other big event is the Iranian elections. I think that they are slightly
less important to the development of our policy, partly for the reasons that
the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre discussed. Even if President Khatami
returns and defeats Ahmadinejad in the elections—it looks as if that will
be the contest—he
maintained the nuclear programme under his presidential leadership before, so
the nuclear issue will not go away, even after the election. Understanding what
the Americans will do is therefore critical.
What must the Americans be thinking, what questions must they be asking themselves and how should the Foreign Office interact with their review, as I hope that it is doing? There are a number of issues to consider. First, there are the sanctions, then there are the negotiations and the preconditions, and, finally, there is the rhetoric, which can be important. On sanctions, we and the Americans have to ask ourselves whether the current sanctions regime is working, and the answer is clearly that it is not. There are therefore only two options. First, we could strengthen the regime, because we think that it could work politically but we need to plug the gaps in the way that the hon. Member for South Thanet said, getting the Chinese, Russians, Austrians, Cypriots, Italians and all the others who have been mentioned to sort themselves out and creating a regime that brings Tehran to book, so that it will listen to us. That is a possibility, but it is clear from my description that it might not be as easy as some would hope. That option should certainly be considered, because sanctions regimes can work, but they must be rather more far-reaching than the current one.
The alternative view is that sanctions might not work. We might regret that, but we should perhaps look at another way of doing things. Perhaps sanctions are sending the wrong political message and preventing engagement. I genuinely do not know, but that is a matter for debate, and we need to ask the Americans how they will proceed. There is genuine concern that the sanctions regime is ineffective and, arguably, counter-productive. We then come to negotiations. Her Majesty’s Government have done an awful lot of work through the E3 plus 3 to get negotiations off the ground, and I pay tribute to them for doing so. On the face of it, Iran has been offered some fantastic deals and economic inducements, but, again, that does not appear to be working, and one has to ask why. Again, I am not sure and I am speculating, which is why I was particularly interested in what the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre had to say.
Part of the problem is understanding why Iran wants nuclear power or, indeed, why it wants the prospect of being able to get a nuclear bomb or to get a nuclear bomb itself. Is it because Iran wants to attack the rest of the world—perhaps Israel or somewhere else? Is it because it feels particularly insecure and thinks that it will be attacked? It has seen the American army in Iraq, and NATO in Afghanistan. It has also seen the instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it knows that Israel has a bomb. Perhaps the Iranian leadership is worried that someone might attack it—let us face it, there has been an open debate about whether Israel would attack it, and we thought at one time that President Bush’s Administration might do so. Iran may therefore want to arm itself because it fears being attacked.
Another
reason, which is presented as more potent for Iran in some of the material that
I have read, is that Iran is seeking stature and status; it wants to show that
it has arrived in the modern world. It believes that it has a proud Persian
past and it thinks, “If everyone else has these things, why can’t
we?” We have to understand that. Whether we like the regime or not, and
even
though we might think that it is appalling, we have to understand where it is
coming from and why it wants to pursue its present course, even though we may
find it distasteful. If we are to move the regime from its present course, we
have to meet that status issue in some other way in our negotiations. We therefore
really have to engage in the negotiations. Some Democrats in the US are talking
about a diplomatic surge being required to get the negotiations going, and they
may well be right.
A key issue for the negotiations, which the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre touched on, is the preconditions that we set. The current preconditions—in effect, that Iran must cease enrichment—are clearly not working, because nothing is happening. Despite all the inducements, the cessation of enrichment condition is not working. In some of the academic material and diplomatic debates, we have seen that preconditions can be finessed and tweaked, and that is clearly an option in the review. We have heard about the freeze-for-freeze option, under which we will freeze sanctions if Iran freezes enrichment. Several years ago, the International Crisis Group talked about a phased delay, with the west saying, “Yes, of course you have the right to enrich, but we want to negotiate with you and we want you to delay enrichment.” Such an approach would recognise Iran’s status, but get rid of the precondition that prevented negotiations.
The Americans’ review may look at those preconditions, and they may decide to drop them all, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre hinted. Candidate Obama certainly talked about that, although he got a lot of flak from the Republicans and slightly switched his position. However, he talked about negotiations with the Iranians with no preconditions, and I imagine that the Americans are reviewing that option.
I have dealt with the sanctions review and the negotiations, and I will finish with the rhetoric. Whatever the review decides, we have to tone down our rhetoric. Iran has rightly been criticised for some of the rhetoric in which it has engaged. That is particularly true of Ahmadinejad, whose rhetoric has been absolutely appalling—particularly the things that he said about Israel. However, I should quote former Vice-President Cheney, who said about Iran:
“We don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it.”
The rhetoric is on both sides. The “axis of evil” rhetoric is not helpful, and we have to ensure that we drop that nonsense from our approach.
This is an incredibly complex and nuanced debate. Besides the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, and perhaps the hon. Members for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) and for South Thanet, there are few people in the House who really understand all the levels. However, we tend to reach consensus on the issue in our debates, and I hope that we can take that forward so that Britain has the influence that it should have, particularly with the new American Administration.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) on securing the debate. There could hardly be a more important foreign affairs topic and one more deserving of debate in the House.
British policy towards Iran should be based first and foremost on a hard-headed and pragmatic assessment of where the British national interest lies. That interest certainly lies in seeing Iran once again become engaged as part of the mainstream of the international community. Several hon. Members have talked about the impact of economic change on Iran. Anybody who has been to Iran and experienced the planned power cuts every day or looked at the half-mile queues outside filling stations in that oil-producing country will have some awareness of the economic pressures that are biting on ordinary Iranian families.
There is no doubt that, with 60 per cent. of the population under 30, there is a tremendous appetite for economic growth and educational development, and for Iran to become part of the world once again. However, as my hon. Friend and others have said, the political obstacles in the way of that re-engagement are formidable, and the time available—particularly given the crisis over nuclear policy—is very limited.
As I look at Iran, I see a country that takes enormous pride in its history and cultural achievements. There is perhaps a parallel with China, in that Iran also has an abiding sense of resentment at having had its interests trampled over by the dominant powers in the world—the powers of the western world—for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. We do not necessarily have to agree with the Iranians’ view of the world to want to understand what it is like to be in their shoes. If one talks to Iranian Ministers and officials in Tehran, one hears that they feel surrounded. They say, “We have a nuclear Russia to the north of us, which occupied the northern part of our country not so many decades ago; we have a United States fleet to our south in the Gulf; we have an American army in Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east; we have a nuclear-armed Sunni power in Pakistan; and we have Israel, which is assumed to possess nuclear weapons, which talks about Iran representing an existential threat.” One of the starting points in considering policy must be to appreciate how the other side sees the world.
There are huge differences. I want briefly to digress, because the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) was right to flag up the continuing importance of human rights in any dialogue between London and Tehran. It is ironic that when one visits Tehran the Iranians talk with great pride about how there are designated seats in the Majlis for representatives of the Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities. That must be contrasted with the appalling apostasy laws and the ruthless treatment of members of the Baha’i faith, whose leaders are even now imprisoned without trial, possibly awaiting charges for which, if found guilty, they could face a capital penalty. As the hon. Member for Stroud pointed out, not only is the death penalty used, but it is used in the most barbaric fashion, and there is imprisonment without trial or due process. I encourage the Minister to continue to exhort the Iranians to improve their record on human rights.
Mr.
Wallace: Does my hon. Friend agree, on the subject of
rights, that the Iranian constitution gives many rights, and protects human
rights for all, but that the problem is that the present regime especially has
tried to step outside the constitution and veto those rights, continually using
terrorism and national security as an excuse? Does he agree that one thing that
the west
should do is urge Iran to stick to its constitution and stop it making exemptions
in its laws under the guise of national security?
Mr. Lidington: My hon. Friend makes his point effectively.
Iran has the capacity to play an important and constructive role in the politics of the middle east and south-western Asia. Initially, it was hostile to the Taliban and it co-operated with the coalition forces in 2001 when they first entered Afghanistan. There is no doubt, from talking to Iranian leaders, that they are acutely aware of the damaging impact of the drugs trade and large numbers of Afghan refugees on the stability of their society. There is scope for Iran to become a partner for stability in Afghanistan, but it would need a change of heart from Tehran, which would need to be willing to turn language about wanting co-operation into concrete policy.
It is fair, too, for the west to acknowledge that Iran has legitimate national interests at stake in Iraq and the wider Gulf region. However, if Iran wants the west to take its interests seriously, it needs to understand how destabilising are comments such as those made recently by one of the President’s advisers, asserting that Bahrain should be part of Iranian territory. I should like the Minister to say whether the Government have pressed the Iranians to make a clear assertion—because I think it is now needed—that they respect Bahrain’s sovereignty and independence. The current President of Iran has used inflammatory language about Israel. I have said to Iranians that they grossly underestimate the fear that such language has provoked in Israel. There is no doubt that there is genuine fear in Israel that Iran poses a threat to the state’s very existence, yet speeches are made by Iranian leaders—most recently by Dr. Larijani at the Munich security conference in February—in which they talk about Israel as they talk about other states; they do not talk about the Zionist entity, but about Israel, a country that exists: it is a country that they do not like, and with whose policies they are at odds, but they see it as part of the region, and part of the world. If the Iranians would make it clear that they are willing to accept the existence of Israel, and the reality of the Israeli state, it would help things move forward.
I must finish with a few words about the nuclear programme. There are some unpalatable facts. The programme is popular in Iran. There is a question as to how far we can trust any opinion survey, but there are surveys that show that up to 80 per cent. or more of the Iranian population support the case that Iran should have a nuclear capability. There is no doubt that the non-proliferation treaty gives Iran the right to civil nuclear power, but that right is subject to the rules and inspection regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The verdict set out in the IAEA’s most recent report of 19 February is clear: the Iranians are still refusing either to accept the additional protocol, which provides for unannounced inspections of key installations, or to provide full access to and co-operation with inspectors along the lines that the agency has been seeking.
The
question is now what should be done. Does the Minister believe that we can still
persuade Iran to stop, or at least suspend, its policy of enrichment? It is
quite possible for Iran to have a working civil nuclear energy
programme without the need to enrich material on Iranian soil. Is it possible
to insert into the system an effective and verifiable barrier between the acquisition
of a nuclear capability and the development of a nuclear weapon, so that any
temptation to move to nuclear break-out could be deterred, and any step towards
it, however slight, could be detected, and appropriate action could be taken?
In my party, we welcome President Obama’s outreach to Iran, but we believe that that message needs to be complemented by a greater determination on the part of the European Union to provide effective sanctions, to make it clear to Tehran that the alternative to engagement in response to the American initiative is major damage to the interests of Iran and its people. In particular, we want European sanctions against new oil and gas investment and a ban on new export credits. We have a chance available to us, but time is short, and I hope that the Minister will explain how the British Government plan to take policy forward in the next few months.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Bill Rammell): I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) on securing today’s debate, which has been constructive and well informed—across the Chamber. As hon. Members are aware, 2009 is shaping up to be a very significant year for Iran’s relationship with the international community. The United States, rightly in my view, is offering to extend its hand, and Iran, bluntly, will have to decide how to respond. President Obama said on 27 January that
“it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress.”
So far, the fist has remained clenched, but there is still time for Iran to change its approach. Iran could, and should, choose to transform its relationship with the international community. Such a decision would benefit Iran and its people and the whole international community. However, to take advantage of the opportunities that would flow from such a change, Iran must face up to its responsibilities, many of which it currently chooses to ignore.
We touched on the nuclear issue. Iran ignores its obligations to the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency. It chooses to defy the will of both by continuing to enrich uranium, and refusing the IAEA the access that it seeks. Iran disregards its responsibilities; it supports terrorism and chooses to undermine stability and security in its own neighbourhood. Inside its borders, Iran pays no heed to the commitment that it has freely undertaken to its people to uphold international standards of human rights.
The point is that Iran has choices to make and the opportunity to change course. On the nuclear file, Iran can suspend enrichment, take up the E3 plus 3 offer and enjoy the many benefits that will come from co-operating with the international community, rather than standing toe to toe with us and seeking further confrontation and isolation. Iran could pursue its legitimate interests in the region through legitimate means, and play a constructive rather than destructive role. On human rights, Iran could take steps to recover the prestige it claims for itself by guaranteeing the rights of its people.
Our position is clear; we would like to have the opportunity of engaging in a positive and constructive relationship with Iran. We share interests across a wide range of issues, including promoting stability, security and economic development in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Iran took the opportunity and changed course, we could work together constructively. However, Iran’s behaviour undermines our confidence, and makes a mockery of the claims that it makes for itself. Until Iran changes course, we will be uncompromising in calling on it to meet its obligations.
I now address some of the points made this morning. I start by answering the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, who initiated the debate. Let me be clear; we are not advocating or talking about regime change in Iran. We have made that clear both publicly and privately. This country has no hostility to Iran. As a number of Members said, it is a country with a long and distinguished history and a great culture.
We are open to contact with Iran. The Foreign Secretary has told Foreign Minister Mottaki that the United Kingdom sincerely wishes for a more positive relationship; but that requires Iran to change its behaviour, in particular to take up our offer on the nuclear file. If it does not do so, we will be forced to continue on the current path.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke about the suspension of enrichment by Iran in 2004. We need to look forward, rather than back to missed opportunities. Both sides have to be committed to the process. The international community is certainly willing to engage, but Iran has to meet its international obligations. The scope of the 2004 suspension was ambiguous, and Iran continued to enrich at a low level. That is one reason for the lack of trust and confidence.
I took some exception to the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the failure to tackle the drugs problem in Afghanistan. Progress is being made, but it is a colossal challenge. One problem in trying to thwart the drugs trade there is that although Iran supports Afghanistan through capacity building, it also gives the Taliban financial support, weapons and training. Support for the Taliban works fundamentally against the stability that we need in Afghanistan in order to undermine the drugs trade. The House should be unanimous in calling for Iran to stop such activities.
The hon. Gentleman underplayed the threat of Iran developing a nuclear capability. For almost two decades, Iran has concealed its nuclear programme. Five successive UN Security Council resolutions have urged Iran to engage, but it flatly refuses to do so. The latest IAEA report from Dr. El Baradei, published on 19 February, clearly demonstrates that there is a continuing unwillingness to engage, or to provide the information about the alleged studies with a military dimension that has been called for by the international community.
Some people pooh-pooh or dismiss concerns about Iran’s nuclear capability, but if it gains a nuclear capability it will inevitably invite a response from other countries in the region. That will lead to an arms race in the middle east, which is one of the surest ways of stepping towards Armageddon.
Mr.
Wallace: I do not underestimate the dangers of Iran having
a nuclear weapons system. However, it would be right to observe that the international
community
could not prevent North Korea, Pakistan or India from developing one. Moreover,
although Pakistan and India did so, the west continued to engage with them.
Iranians would ask what they had to lose. We must be clear about what they could
lose.
Bill Rammell: I agree. The thrust of our policy is about getting Iran to confront the choice that it faces and the direction in which it should go.
I welcome what the hon. Gentleman said in support of the state of Israel. However, to deny the responsibility of the supreme leader for what President Ahmadinejad said when he spoke of Israel being wiped off the map of the world and being wiped from the pages of time—I believe that such sentiments are abhorrent, and I hope that all hon. Members share that view.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of there being no preconditions for talks. For a country that has a track record of being enormously well-versed in playing for time and stringing out the process so that the fundamental problem is not tackled, talks without preconditions are a real concern. I support the view of President Obama that we cannot just engage in talks for talks’ sake.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) made a helpful and well-informed contribution. He rightly focused on the influence that Iran wields in the region. Iran arms, trains and funds Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian rejectionist groups. That is wrong, it is destabilising, and it is dangerous. It is of enormous concern not only to us, the United States and the rest of the international community but to every Arab leader to whom I have spoken. It is a fundamental reality that we cannot deliver peace in the middle east without Iran changing its behaviour. We need to work with other Arab states on the matter.
I respect the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), but on the question of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran delisting, he engaged in a rewriting of history. I know, because I was at the centre of things, that the Government went out of their way to ensure that the decisions of our courts and of the European Union Court of First Instance on delisting were respected; it was others in the EU that we needed to win over—something that we did subsequently.
The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions about Camp Ashraf. He will know that the US handed responsibility for it to Iraq on 1 January. The high commission for refugees and the International Committee for the Red Cross are involved, and the US received assurances from the Iraqi Government about the continued well-being of residents. We will obviously monitor the situation.
The hon. Gentleman asked a specific question about a visa case. That is a matter for the Border and Immigration Agency, but if he writes to me or to the Minister for Borders and Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East and Saddleworth (Mr. Woolas), we can provide a response.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) made an important contribution
on human rights in Iran. We must remember that Iran is one of a handful of countries
that still execute juveniles; more than 140 are on death row. Iran has a draft
law before the Majlis that would bring in a mandatory death sentence for the
crime of apostasy. With such alleged crimes being treated in that way, Iran
has no right to be respected for its human rights record.
This
has been an important debate. We want to work with Iran and we want a peaceful
relationship with the country, but the problems that exist must be resolved,
particularly the nuclear issue. Without a resolution, the region, the entire
middle east and the wider world will have major problems. That is why we believe
that Iran faces a choice. I and the Government urge Iran to engage with the
international community and to take the benefits that are available through
the substantive offers that are on the table. It should seek those benefits,
but to do so Iran has to respond to the genuine concerns that exist.
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Paddy Tipping (Sherwood) (Lab): What recent discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on Iran’s nuclear programme.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Bill Rammell): The Foreign Secretary and other Ministers regularly discuss Iran and its nuclear programme with our European Union counterparts. The EU has consistently been at the forefront of the international response to the Iran nuclear issue. The E3 plus 3 reaffirmed its unity and commitment on 4 February to achieving a diplomatic resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.
Paddy Tipping: I am grateful for that reply, but will the Minister ensure that those European discussions link closely with the potential of the new President of the United States, who seems to hold the possibility of a more flexible and open approach towards Iran?
Bill Rammell: We very much welcome the US Administration’s willingness to engage directly with Iran, which I think is what my hon. Friend was referring to. However, no one should be in any doubt that President Obama has made it clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. Iran has to make a choice between, on the one hand, the very generous E3 plus 3 offer and a transformed relationship with the international community and, on the other hand, continuing on the path of confrontation, increasing isolation, and tougher and expanded sanctions.
Mr. Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con): When the Secretary of State meets the US Secretary of State next week, what will he be able to tell her about what further steps the EU is going to take, given that the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran has now enriched enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon?
Bill Rammell: The US is reviewing its position with regard to Iran, and we are discussing the issue. However, as I have made clear, President Obama has made it clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. We all need to work together to force Iran to confront that fundamental choice: on the one hand, engagement and all the benefits that it can bring or, on the other, increased isolation.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): Does the Minister not agree that this might be a good opportunity to launch the idea of a nuclear-free middle east, which would involve the non-development of nuclear weapons by any existing states in the middle east and, of course, nuclear disarmament by the only nuclear-armed state in the region, namely Israel? Does he not also agree that this year’s forthcoming non-proliferation treaty preparatory committee, or prepcom, would be a good time to launch such an initiative?
Bill Rammell: I am sure that my hon. Friend would welcome the fact that this country and this Government are the most forward-leaning of the nuclear weapon states in terms of disarmament. We need constantly to reiterate that. We are also very committed to a nuclear-free middle east and have consistently urged the Government of Israel to sign up to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state.
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Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con): The possible formation of a Government under Mr. Netanyahu is a matter of some concern in the context of the Iranian nuclear programme. Will the Minister and EU Ministers impress upon any Government headed by Mr. Netanyahu the vital importance of restraint and of working in concert with the EU countries and the United States, and that his Government should not contemplate any unilateral action?
Bill Rammell: Let me make it clear to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we have consistently been 100 per cent. committed to a diplomatic solution. Nevertheless, we face a serious challenge in respect of Iran. The whole international community needs to focus Iran on the choice that it faces.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet) (Lab): Carrying on doing what we are doing and expecting it to have a different outcome would seem to be folly. What we are doing now seems in no way to be slowing down the Iranian nuclear programme. If we are to avoid the accusation in two years’ time that we allowed the world to drift into a nightmare, how do we and our EU partners take things to the next level in applying pressure on Iran? In particular, those in the Arab world have just as much to lose from a nuclear-armed Iran, so how do we get them to join us?
Bill Rammell: My hon. Friend makes an exceedingly pertinent point. In all the discussions that I have in the middle east, there is significant concern, among the Gulf states and other middle east states, about the position of Iran. We need to maximise the consensus and force Iran to face the choice that is before it. The United States Administration have rightly said that they are willing in principle to open a direct dialogue with Iran. We need to reinforce that. We also need to maximise the unity and get Iran to the point where it makes the choice that is necessary.
Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh) (Con): The latest report from the IAEA states that Iran has now stockpiled more than 1,000 kg of low-enriched uranium. If Iran continues at this pace, it will be a matter not of if, but when, it actually has a nuclear weapons capability. Can the Minister therefore assure the House that the EU will now finally muster the will to impose the key sanctions that the Prime Minister first announced back in 2007 on investment in Iranian oil and gas?
Bill Rammell: The European Union, as I argued earlier, has been at the
forefront of those internationally arguing for and urging sanctions. The latest
IAEA report is one of real and serious concern. It underlines the reasons why
we have a lack of confidence in that Iran has not responded to the IAEA report
and is not allowing legitimate access. We need to keep up the argument that
that is what we rightly expect Iran to do.
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Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): What assessment he has made of the implications for UK defence policy of recent Iranian missile development.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Hutton): We routinely assess the military capabilities of other nations’ armed forces, including those of Iran. Iran is attempting to improve its ballistic missile capabilities; we continue to monitor these developments very carefully indeed.
Angela Watkinson: I thank the Secretary of State for his reply, but how worried are the Government about the potential supply of Fajr-2 missiles from Iran to Hamas and what would be the implications for regional security, including the safety of our own troops?
Mr. Hutton: Iran should stop meddling in the affairs of the middle east. That is what it should do. The supply of armaments to Hamas in Gaza is profoundly unwelcome and must stop. We have made an offer to try to help the interdiction of those missile supplies and we stand ready to do that. We have no information to suggest that the capabilities that the Iranians are seeking to acquire pose a threat to UK forces, but Iran’s growing interest in developing ballistic missile technology goes far beyond what is and can ever be justified in terms of Iranian self-defence, so we are entitled, along with our allies, to keep a very close eye on the continuing malign influence that Iran is playing in the middle east.
23 Feb 2009 : Column 12
Ms Dari Taylor (Stockton, South) (Lab): What attempts have the Government made to speak with Iran about the possibility of it signing, or at least seeing the value of, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty?
Mr. Hutton: We should certainly continue to discuss those matters with Iran. It is quite clear that Iran is continuing to take steps to seek to acquire a nuclear weapons programme. We must do everything we possibly can, with our international allies, to ensure that that never happens.
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): What assessment has the Secretary of State made of possible Russian involvement in arming Iran, in particular the stories that the Russians might be providing the Iranians with anti-missile missiles?
Mr. Hutton: We do have concerns about the suggestion that Russian ground-to-air missiles might be provided to the Iranians. As part of trying to secure the defence of Iranian nuclear installations, that would certainly be a very unwelcome development. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have had discussions with Russia about those matters, and continue to do so.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East) (Con): Within the last few days, it has been revealed by the British ambassador to the United Nations that in 2005 the Iranians offered the British a deal whereby they said:
“We stop killing you in Iraq...you allow us to carry on with our missile and nuclear programme.”
That deal was rightly rejected. This is, I believe, the first time that a senior British official has spoken about an Iranian admission of direct involvement in killing British service personnel. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that is also his understanding of that situation?
Mr. Hutton: I do not think that there is any doubt that, in recent years,
the Iranians have been assisting various groups in Iraq to attack British forces.
That is totally unacceptable. Iran should keep its nose out of Iraq and other
countries. Iran has a legitimate set of interests in the middle east, but it
has no right whatever to involve itself in the internal security situation of
other countries. Its role in assisting those groups to kill British forces is
one that we will never forget.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/
cmhansrd/cm090223/debtext/90223-0002.htm#0902232000017
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—( Helen Jones.)
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): On 13 January, I stumbled across a copy of The Wall Street Journal. An articled headed “Tehran’s strip club” reported something that is widely known across the Atlantic in the United States but has not had much oxygen, or light shed on it, in the United Kingdom either in the media or in Parliament. Nevertheless, it relates to our security policy, and our attempts to combat terrorism and have high standards of banking.
I discovered that Lloyds TSB had pleaded guilty to the Attorney General’s Department in the United States to doing things in London to circumvent US sanctions against Iran. Not only The Wall Street Journal, but many other journals report that Lloyds TSB has entered into what is described as a deferred prosecution agreement with the US federal authorities, whereby it has already paid $300 million to those authorities by way of a fine. That was done not with a view to settling the matter, but to entering into an agreement with the federal authorities to make full disclosure of what is known in the industry as “stripping” in relation to money that came from Iran via London and got into the United States by the falsifying of documents in London. This is a very serious matter. The US Department of Justice and the district attorney concerned have done a favour not only to the United States but to the wider international financial community and us in the United Kingdom by detecting that operation.
As I have said, there is no disagreement or debate about the matter. Lloyds TSB has acknowledged fully and unreservedly that it was involved in the practice. However, it made that declaration after being discovered. Lloyds TSB was certainly using the practice, which is illegal in the US, between 2001 and 2004, but never acknowledged that until being challenged after 2007. Indeed, in the period up to 2007, Lloyds TSB used similar practices in relation to moneys that came from Sudan, which were stripped here in London and then got into the US financial and banking system.
What was the purpose of such a complicated process? I inquired about that. It would seem that Lloyds—and, regrettably, some other financial institutions here in London—helped Iran’s rogue banks to infiltrate the US. The Iranians needed American dollars, sometimes to purchase things within the US borders, but also to channel other moneys through US banks to third countries or other parties demanding payment in dollars. All the evidence suggests that at least some of the money was destined to be used to purchase dual-use materials or technology, as part of the Iranians’ desire to increase their weaponry and develop weapons, to the disadvantage of the international community.
The
system worked like this. The UK branches or subsidiaries of the Iranian banks
would send electronic messages via what is described as the SWIFT banking payment
system, which would go to Lloyds. Employees at Lloyds in London would then re-key
the data into a new SWIFT message, carefully removing any reference to Iran
or its banks. Employees at the British bank called the process “stripping”,
as I have already said.
The US sophisticated screening operations and software would normally have flagged
up concerns, but as the transfers came from a respected British financial institution,
the alert system did not operate. As I have said, that is agreed ground, and
Lloyds TSB has acknowledged it. The Iranians also benefited sometimes from overnight
deposits in the US, taking advantage of favourable interest rates.
“may have been used to purchase raw materials for long-range missiles.”The US authorities are now in a race to track down the ultimate destinations of those moneys and their precise origins. The district attorney’s office has made it clear that he fears some of the funds
I also regret to tell the House that it is not just Lloyds TSB that is involved. Since starting to delve into the issue, I have discovered that Barclays is having to co-operate with both the US Department of Justice and the district attorney, apparently in relation to similar transactions. Regrettably, the Royal Bank of Scotland has indicated that ABN Amro, which it bought earlier this year with our money, is also being investigated by the US Department of Justice about a similar issue.
On 21 January, I raised this matter at Prime Minister’s questions, and the Prime Minister undertook to look into the matter and to write to me. I asked him how on earth this action could have been taken in London by Lloyds TSB, a British financial institution, to get around US sanctions, and how Lloyds TSB staff could have falsified documents—not my words; that is the admission—to get round those sanctions. Bearing in mind the fact that the United Kingdom has boasted about the need for a strict regime of banking transparency across the membership of the United Nations in order to combat terrorism, how could this have happened in the United Kingdom without there being a breach of UK law? I asked what regulatory bodies such as the Financial Services Authority, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Bank of England and the Treasury, and our security and intelligence services, had been doing about it.
On 29 January, the Prime Minister wrote to me in reply to my questions. He said:
“The position with regard to the penalty levied against Lloyds TSB is set out in the statement by the US Department of Justice of 9 January 2009. There is nothing further I can add in relation to the agreement reached between the US authorities and Lloyds TSB which is a matter between those two parties. You asked why the Bank has not been prosecuted in the UK regarding this matter. The US action against Lloyds TSB concerns past breaches of US sanctions. We can only prosecute in the UK in relation to breaches of UK law.”
In my view, the Prime Minister has missed the point. After 9/11, the United Kingdom led the call for transparency across the United Nations, and many of us are proud of the diligent work of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the then United Kingdom ambassador to the UN, who led the sanctions committee. I had assumed, as had other hon. Members, that we had the most rigorous regime of scrutiny and oversight of our banking and financial sector, in order to frustrate illegal transfers across countries in breach of United Nations sanctions. I think that the Prime Minister still thinks that that is the case.
I had assumed, because of all the posturing from the Dispatch Box by successive
Ministers about Iran exporting terrorism, and Defence Secretaries acknowledging
that
many British soldiers had been killed by ordnance emanating from Iran, that
significant sanctions were in place. For a long time, all of us—particularly
Her Majesty’s Government—have been concerned about Iran’s desire
to develop missiles and nuclear weapons to a point that we believe will threaten
our interests. I find it fantastic that it is not in breach of United Kingdom
law for officials at Lloyds TSB in London to falsify documents. Even if I am
wrong about the sanctions and that none existed at the time, there must surely
be an offence relating to the falsifying of documents.
I am concerned that there is no indication of any attempt by the regulatory bodies to which I have referred to investigate this matter, or of any serious attempt to find the law in this matter. I felt, from the tone of his letter, that the Prime Minister went on to slap my wrists. He said:
“Contrary to the assertion that you made in the House, the US case against Lloyds TSB has not involved accusations of money laundering. Therefore there is no suggestion that Lloyds TSB has contravened UK anti-money laundering legislation.”
I was slightly irritated by that, so I thought I would look up the definition of money laundering. I had assumed that it was quite an old term, but I found that it was apparently invented by The Guardian newspaper at the time of Watergate, so it is a relatively recent one. Money laundering is, I discovered,
“the practice of engaging in finance/financial transactions in order to conceal the identity, source and/or destination of illegally gained money”.
The Prime Minister’s thesis is that at the time of this action, the UK did not have sanctions against Iran in place; apparently we have had them only since early 2007, which will no doubt feature in the Minister’s brief. The Prime Minister thus seems to think that this is not a matter for the UK authorities, but I believe that money laundering is.
Money laundering is something that has had to be combated—both in principle and, I think, in law—for a number of years. We are parties to an organisation known as the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering; it is based in Paris and is primarily known by its French name—Groupe d’action financière sur le blanchiment de capitaux. We signed in 1996—it was revised in 2003—and agreed to criminalise money laundering and to enable the authorities to confiscate the proceeds of money laundering. Countries are required to ensure that their banks
“report certain suspicious financial activities to the appropriate financial regulators and law enforcement authorities.”
There is also something known as the suspicious activities report, to which even Members of Parliament are subject. Lloyds, of course, was hardly going to declare its own wrongdoing, but the UK has an obligation under FATF membership to bear down on such activities. That, however, we have singularly failed to do. Will the Minister kindly address that point in his reply?
The biggest potential payoff is that Lloyds must now disclose fully to the US authorities all the details of these wire transfers originating in Iran and help the CIA and the FBI to track them to their final destinations. I would like to be assured, however, that, at least from now on, the UK authorities will say they also want full disclosure.
Before I move on from the Financial Action Task Force, I want to emphasise the fact that it places a duty on banks to know their clients. Lloyds TSB has not used that as a defence in any case, but there is no doubt that the particular FATF agreement to which the UK is party requires us to ensure the highest standards of banking. The UK has clearly failed in that regard and we should be ashamed of that. It is acutely embarrassing to the UK, particularly to the Foreign Office, which, metaphorically speaking, beat around the head those states that were somewhat reluctant after 9/11 to adopt the required transparency.
I probed and probed to the best of my ability on this matter, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I indicated to you that I felt that things had not been properly reported. I discovered through use of a computer that there had been one or two references to this issue in the UK press and in Parliament, which I shall allude to. In particular, I discovered that a man named Conal Walsh had written in The Observer on 8 October 2006:
“The Financial Services Authority is urgently scouring Britain's banking system for evidence of Iranian terrorism funding following an alert from the US authorities. The move comes after officials at the FSA were shown American intelligence indicating that suspicious Iranian funds were being funnelled through the City of London and other financial centres.”
Apart from that report of 2006, however, there is no indication that the agencies to which I referred earlier have really done anything. I think I am entitled to ask the Minister what—if the Observer article was correct—the FSA found.
On 26 June last year, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer
“what steps are planned to be taken through the Financial Action Task Force to ensure that certain Iranian banks cannot abuse the international banking system to support proliferation activities and terrorism.”
In her reply the then Treasury Minister, the hon. Member for Burnley (Kitty Ussher) actually referred to “anti-money laundering”, which I thought quite interesting. She said:
“The Financial Action Task Force... has expressed concern that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s lack of a comprehensive regime for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism... represents a significant vulnerability within the international financial system.”—[ Official Report, 26 June 2008; Vol. 478, c. 466W.]
It was the Minister, not I, who referred to money laundering. Again, however, there was no indication of what was subsequently discovered.
On 24 November, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks asked the Chancellor
“what assessment he has made of the implications for UK financial institutions of the decision by the United States administration to ban Iran from undertaking u-turn financial transactions”—
apparently, that is the technical term for some of the activities to which I referred earlier—
“involving US financial institutions.”
The new Minister, the hon. Member for Dudley, South (Ian Pearson), replied:
“The U-turn licence enabled Iranian entities to have indirect access to the US financial system—including through UK financial institutions. Revocation of that license will mean financial institutions worldwide can no longer route payments for the benefit of Iran through the US.”
“We are not aware that UK financial institutions made any significant use of the U-turn licence”.—[ Official Report, 24 November 2008; Vol. 483, c. 951W.]
Perhaps the Minister will confirm this later, but I should have thought that both morally and legally, under UK law and because of our international obligations, we had a duty to adhere to the best practices of international banking. Even if at the time of these practices by Lloyds TSB there was no Order in Council or statutory instrument making the activity specifically illegal in the United Kingdom, surely through our lack of intervention we were acquiescing in a serious breach of our international obligations.
I have referred to the deferred prosecution agreement, which is a legal document. The agreement reached between the Department of the United States Attorney General and Lloyds TSB admits that from 2001 until 2004 Lloyds
“falsified the business records of banks in Manhattan by engaging in a systematic process of altering wire transfer information”—
“ to hide the identity of its clients.”
Lloyds had not owned up to that activity, although it had ceased to engage in it in 2004. It was rumbled only because in 2006 the diligent US authorities had embarked on an investigation of the relationship between the Government of Iran and two New York entities. It was during that investigation that they stumbled across evidence that Lloyds
“was engaged in the illegal transfer of funds into Manhattan on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks.”
Regrettably, it seems that they also discovered that other UK financial institutions might be involved in the practice.
The authorities discovered that Iranian business men were looking for high-quality American electronics. They had to act stealthily. They sought special parts coveted by Iran and especially by those seeking to make roadside bombs to kill United States troops in Iraq. That seems to have been the position. When the US Attorney General was asked whether these moneys were being directed towards terrorism, he said, “Actually that’s why we need the full disclosure. We want to know where this came from and where it was going to.” If the United States has not, as of this afternoon, fully discovered and had declared to it the totality of this criminal act in the United States, what confidence can I have, as a Member of the House of Commons, that our FSA, our security and intelligence services, the Bank of England and the Treasury have the slightest notion of what has gone on? I have no confidence about that. All the evidence suggests that there has been wilful ignorance and a washing of hands on the part of these agencies.
These
were not random acts, nor were they a mistake; they were not undertaken by rogue
individuals. It is indicative that Lloyds TSB knowingly set out to break out
United States law and condones the action of a large number of its employees
acting on its behalf. That could have happened only with the permission of people
at the highest level. One internal Lloyds TSB document said that transactions
from the London branches of Iranian banks should be processed in “the normal
way”, which meant removing information that would tie them to Iran—this
is all according to the agreement that Lloyds has now entered into with the
US authorities.
Lloyds eventually dedicated specific employees to scrubbing the Iranian transactions—I think there was even an instruction book on how the employees dealt with that. One of the main questions on which the United States authorities are focusing is whether the money went to terrorism. I, too, want to know the answer to that, and I am entitled to know it, given that, apparently, I and others in this House have sent our armed forces into conflict situations where ordnance is coming from Iran.
In summary, I ask the Minister to address the following points. Will he tell us precisely to what extent this has been examined by the Treasury, the Bank of England, the FSA, SOCA and our security and intelligence services? I guess that he will not tell us about the last of those, and that goes to the heart of the problems with this place—there is no oversight of the security and intelligence services. The ridiculous Intelligence and Security Committee is not a parliamentary Committee; we do not even know, and we not allowed to know, whether it is even trespassing on this issue. That is a further indication of why we need a proper parliamentary Committee. Perhaps we could also create a precedent—perhaps the Minister will indicate whether the Intelligence and Security Committee has looked at this. If it has not, will he invite it to do so?
I have focused largely on Iran, but some $20 million came from the Sudan, through this process, to the US. As has been indicated, this practice went on until 2007—I do not know whether it is a coincidence, but that was when a statutory instrument was passed here. That was probably the cut-off point. It rather indicates that there was full knowledge of and consent about this grave matter by people at a certain level in Lloyds—they were watching all the time. I want the Minister to tell me specifically whether it is lawful for a UK bank to falsify documents in the UK—let us forget about the US on that particular point.
Obviously, this was a systematic process; people were prepared to do this and it was sanctioned at the highest level in Lloyds TSB. One of the things that we have discovered over the past few weeks is that people do not do things for nowt—clearly, bonuses would have been paid to these people. I would like the Minister to say—if he would not mind—whether or not bonuses were paid to the staff and managers involved.
Over the past three or four months, the sums of money that have been discussed in this place are beyond belief—not billions, but trillions—so a mere $300 million may appear small change. But to most of us, it is a very serious matter. That is the sum paid to the US authorities by Lloyds TSB as an interim payment. It is no exaggeration to say that that is our money, which is not to say that the US authorities were wrong to demand it. Therefore, we have a right to know what happened. There was criminal wrongdoing, and the response by the UK has been pathetic. I am disappointed with the Prime Minister—not because he wrote the letter, but because he should have told the Treasury that it had to look into what happened. I will not let him get away with washing his hands of this issue; it is a very serious matter. It makes us a laughing stock around the world, it will prejudice the reputation of reputable financial institutions in this country, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) on securing this debate and bringing this important matter to the attention of the House. I intend to make only a brief contribution.
We live in a morally ambivalent age, and nothing will change that. But what on earth was a British bank doing, doing business with Iran? It was a shameful performance by Lloyds TSB. As the hon. Gentleman rightly points out, the $300 million fine is not coming from a magical printing press. It is shareholders’ money and, as the taxpayer, we are the shareholders, so it is our money. We need to know exactly what was going on.
All this happened a few years ago. Since then, we have had a bail-out of the banking sector, in which Lloyds TSB received the full endorsement of Government to take over HBOS, with this appalling act in the US hanging over its head. We can ask Lloyds TSB and its senior board members—they are still in place—how much money is enough. How much money do they need to make? Why did they do business with Iran? After all, we know full well that in Iran homosexual men are routinely murdered and hanged from cranes. Lloyds TSB makes great play of its corporate social responsibility. It claims to value its people. Well, in this matter, its corporate social responsibility does not amount to a hill of beans.
As the hon. Gentleman so rightly pointed out, we do not know whether the transactions conducted via Lloyds TSB have resulted in the loss of life of young American men and women who are meant to be our allies and whom we are meant to support. Lloyds TSB still has a huge amount of explaining to do on this issue and I hope that the Minister can address those issues when he winds up.
I do not expect the banking sector to be a paragon of virtue. Indeed, we have seen over the past year that it is very far from that. But it is one thing to make bets on derivatives and overseas mortgage markets. It is another to do business with the regime in Iran. Lloyds TSB not only did business with that regime, but actively falsified the evidence and covered it up. It cannot claim that an innocent mistake was made, or a rogue manager was responsible and the bank had no idea what was happening. It was sanctioned at the very highest levels of one of the UK’s leading plcs. And at that time it was one of our leading plcs—it was probably one of the top large companies quoted on the stock exchange. Again, I agree with the hon. Member for Thurrock that that is of critical importance.
The hon. Gentleman also highlighted the very important fact that Lloyds did business with Sudan as well as with Iran. Month in and month out, hon. Members and Ministers come to this place to express concern and disgust about what is going on in terms of the persecution of minorities in Sudan, yet one of this country’s leading banks was doing business there. I imagine that Lloyds bank thought that it was a sweetener to secure further business. I do not know for sure, but I have strong suspicion that if the people involved had not been caught they would have continued to grow their business in Iran.
I
accept that there are issues to do with dual jurisdiction, and that we live
in a global marketplace where there will always be conflicts and problems such
as have been set
out today. However, I shall conclude my brief comments by repeating my question
of a few moments ago—that is, how much money is enough?
I always thought that the people who run our major industries, and most politicians, were fundamentally decent people tasked with making hugely important decisions. A lot of people do not like the decisions that our leading business men and politicians take, but they put themselves in such leadership positions, and that means that they have to take difficult decisions and stand by them. The British people are fair minded: we may not like the decisions that are taken, but we recognise the right of the people involved to make those decisions and the reasons why they take them.
However, I doubt that anyone in this country can fathom how probably decent people thought that it was legitimate to do business in Iran. On the scale of things, and compared to Lloyds’ global portfolio, the amounts of money involved are quite small. It did business in Iran because it wanted to earn a little extra. Again, how much money is enough? How much profit did it need to make? Frankly, it is not surprising that our banking sector is in its current mess if such morally ambivalent people are in leadership positions.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Timms): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) for drawing the House’s attention to this very important issue. He referred to the letter dated 29 January that he received from the Prime Minister, but let me say a word about the settlement that has been reached. My hon. Friend described it as an interim settlement, and I think that he took that to mean that there could be a further fine.
My understanding is that that is not the case: the matter has been settled and Lloyds has signed a deferred prosecution agreement, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock rightly said. That means that the matter is settled as long as Lloyds sticks to the agreement for the next two years.
Andrew Mackinlay: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Timms: It is rather early in my response, but I will give way.
Andrew Mackinlay: It is early in his response, but the Minister is uttering the spin given to him by Lloyds TSB and the Treasury. He says that the matter has been settled, but it will be final only if there is full disclosure. The settlement is contingent on Lloyds TSB coming up with the fine and full disclosure, but that process has not been concluded yet. The US authorities will draw a line under the matter only when they are satisfied that is has been concluded. I do not feel comfortable that some people involved in criminal activity might get off scot-free, but that has not been agreed yet. The deferred prosecution is precisely that—deferred.
Mr. Timms: Indeed, and as long as Lloyds sticks to the agreement for two years there will no further fine or action. The disclosure process to which my hon. Friend referred is not about to start, and neither did it commence with the agreement on 9 January: as I shall explain in a moment, it happened well before that.
I want first to explain a little more of the facts of the US case; secondly, to explain how the case fits into UK law and international best practice at that time—I hope to answer some of my hon. Friend’s questions—and thirdly, to explain more generally the actions that we have taken to improve the transparency of inter-bank payments and to deal with the financial threats posed by Iran.
The US Department of Justice’s statement of 9 January 2009 set out that Lloyds TSB committed a violation of the US International Emergency Economic Powers Act—legislation under which the US Executive are able to prohibit transactions in response to an “extraordinary threat” arising outside the United States. Of course, the US has had sanctions in place against Iran since 1979, so now for 30 years. They have been progressively tightened since then due to growing concerns about the Iranian regime’s sponsorship of terrorism, as my hon. Friend said, and, more recently, its nuclear programme. However, until November last year, US financial sanctions against Iran included a special licensing arrangement, to which my hon. Friend referred, known as the U-turn exception, which allowed some US dollar transactions that involved Iran to be processed through US dollar clearing in New York.
Those transactions were allowed if, first, they were sent between two non-US banks; and secondly, if the transactions did not require the debiting or crediting of an account of an Iranian individual or entity managed on the books of a US bank. The way that my hon. Friend referred to that slightly gave the impression that a bank had to apply for such a licence. My understanding is that that was a general licence that could be exercised if those two conditions were met. In other words, the exception applied if the Iranian link to the transaction did not touch the US or a US bank directly. It was designed to prevent US sanctions completely shutting off Iranian access to the dollar, given that oil transactions are globally denominated in US dollars. There was quite a wide interest in Iranian oil sales having such access.
Andrew Mackinlay: The Minister might recall that I raised the issue in the context of a reply to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), where the then Minister, our hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, South (Ian Pearson) indicated in his reply that there was not much activity. I raised it in the House to demonstrate that, in my view, there has not been due diligence by our authorities, because demonstrably a lot of activity was going on, but the reply, diligently given by a decent Minister but fed to him by the machine behind, indicated that there was nothing much in this. I do not want to labour the point by going back over my notes, but the Official Report will show that the tenor of the reply was that there was no problem. Well, there was a problem, and part of my submission to the House is that there has not been due diligence by the other agencies, not even to scratch the surface of this matter.
Mr. Timms: The point that I want to underline is that the general licence allowed banks to conduct such transactions with Iran in those circumstances.
The
US Department of Justice’s statement sets out that, between 1995 and 2007,
Lloyds TSB, in both the UK and Dubai, made changes, as my hon. Friend
has explained, to SWIFT messages—messages on the international worldwide
funds transfer network, which are known in the US as wire transfers—worth
more than US$350 million that involved principally Iran, but also Sudan, as
he has mentioned, and, I understand, Libya as well. That involved removing payment
originator information from some inter-bank payment instructions, so that payments
would not be identified by US correspondent banks as originating from countries
subject to US sanctions. The infringement related to removing originator information,
rather than to the transactions themselves. That is quite an important point.
The infringement had to do with the removal of that information.
I understand that Lloyds TSB ceased removing payment originator information from Iranian transactions in 2003. I think that my hon. Friend said 2004; anyway, it was round about then. It is perhaps worth noting that the US banks did process the payments, even though the SWIFT messages did not contain originator information. My hon. Friend suggested that that was because they thought that if the payments were from a UK bank, everything must be fine. My hon. Friend said that ABN AMRO had also been doing such things, too. I was not aware of that; I do not know whether that is correct, but I have no reason to doubt it. It was not a UK bank at the time. There is at least a question that ought to be raised about how the transactions were processed by the US banks, even though the messages did not contain originator information.
As we have heard, as a result of the breaches of US law, Lloyds has agreed to pay a fine of $350 million. Lloyds has notified the markets of that, and made provisions in its accounts last year for the payment of the penalty. Given its hedging arrangements, the £180 million provision in place in its accounts will, I understand, cover the full size of the penalty. It is important to stress that the US investigation is specific to breaches of US sanctions law; I know that my hon. Friend was concerned about that point. The US investigation does not allege that Lloyds TSB breached international sanctions, or that it facilitated terrorist finance, proliferation finance or money laundering. Indeed, the deferred prosecution agreement between the US authorities and Lloyds records that subsequent screening of the payments routed through the US between August 2002 and the time when the accounts were closed found no matches with names on the US terrorist or weapons of mass destruction watch lists. The US Department of Justice has acknowledged that Lloyds’ co-operation with it has provided substantial assistance to the New York District Attorney and the Department of Justice.
My hon. Friend, perfectly fairly, asks why no one has been prosecuted in the UK over the issue. As he says, he raised the matter with the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House on 21 January. He has anticipated the answer; it is that we can prosecute only for breaches of UK law, and not for breaches of US law. As I have set out, the US case against Lloyds TSB concerns breaches of US sanctions. I certainly have not seen evidence of breaches of UK law in this case. I have seen no evidence of breaches of international sanctions, money laundering rules or terrorist finance rules. That is consistent with the findings in the US case, which is specific to breaches of US sanctions.
It is worth noting that the US imposed comprehensive financial sanctions on Iran after the Iranian revolution in 1979; we remember some of the circumstances. However, United Nations and European Union sanctions against Iran have been much more recent, and more targeted. Given the history of relations between the US and Iran, it is not a surprise that breaches of US-Iran sanctions did not necessarily amount to breaches of UK or European Union law.
Given the concerns that my hon. Friend raised about the way in which changes were made to the messages, I shall say a little more about how international banking practice relating to the transparency of inter-bank payments has developed. Decisions on what payment information should be included in SWIFT messages has, in the past, been regarded as a commercial matter for the banks. The decision was dependent mainly on what was required, technically, to allow the SWIFT messaging system to be used successfully. However, new international standards for measures to counter illicit financing were introduced following the 11 September terrorist attacks. The Financial Action Task Force, to which my hon. Friend referred, made nine special recommendations on terrorist financing in 2001, one of which—special recommendation VII—covers wire transfers. It aimed to correct the lack of transparency in inter-bank payments, which was recognised as a potential weakness in the system. Special recommendation VII calls on countries to
“take measures to require financial institutions, including money remitters, to include accurate and meaningful originator information...on funds transfers and related messages”.
That recommendation was agreed in 2001, and was followed up by technical work on how it should be implemented, which continued until 2005. Once the technical work was complete, the European Union decided to implement special recommendation VII at the Community level. That was done through the Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2007, known as the wire transfer regulation, which was taken forward during the UK presidency of the EU in 2005. Following an agreement by the Council of Finance Ministers in, I think, November 2006, the regulation came into effect in January 2007.
The EU wire transfer regulation requires payments to contain complete information—name, address and account number—on the payer. To remove payment information, as was done in the case that my hon. Friend rightly highlighted, is not permitted under the regulation.
Until the regulation took effect in January 2007, there was no requirement in UK or EU law for banks to provide full payer information. So the actions of Lloyds TSB involving transactions before January 2007 do not constitute breaches of UK or EU law. And, as I pointed out, Lloyds stopped removing payment information from Iran transactions in 2003, well before 2007 when the legal obligation to do so under UK law and EU law came into effect.
Actions
to tighten the law have been complemented by efforts by the banking organisations
to raise standards of best practice. The Wolfsberg group of international banks
has set out what it calls messaging practice standards to ensure that the payment
system is not abused. Wolfsberg also acted to encourage SWIFT to make technical
changes to the messaging system that will increase the
amount of data that accompanies certain kinds of payment. Those changes are
expected to come into effect at the end of 2009.
In addition, the Basel committee on banking supervision has been considering the issue at the request of the international regulatory community, and will shortly publish its own statement on the steps that banks should take to increase transparency in international payments.
Let me conclude by setting out the Government’s approach to financial restrictions against Iran. We have been at the forefront of international efforts, in the Financial Action Task Force and the European Union, to strengthen controls on terrorist finance and to improve the transparency of inter-bank payments.
Andrew Mackinlay: I apologise for interrupting. I indicated in my speech that part of the issue was the embarrassment to the United Kingdom and inconsistencies with our foreign policy. I listened carefully to the Minister. It took the United Kingdom and the EU six whole years to implement that financial agreement, yet we were bragging and boasting and beating people about the head around the world from 2001 through the United Nations, in a committee headed by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, to implement it without delay. It is a revelation to us. It shows how we—our Foreign Office and the Treasury—were deficient in due diligence on the matter. It is a disgrace.
Mr. Timms: Let me give my hon. Friend a little more information about the process that was followed. His characterisation of it is not quite right.
The FATF special recommendation to which I referred was agreed in October 2001, but the specific requirements on banks were not clarified until the Financial Action Task Force agreed an interpretive note in the middle of 2005. My hon. Friend asks why it took so long. That is a fair question. That was the period that the FATF took to achieve and agree that interpretive note. The European Union then acted quite promptly and a proposal was made in July 2005. As I have said, ECOFIN approved the regulation in November 2006, and the regulation took effect on 1 January 2007.
I shall set out a little bit more information on UK policy. We have been at the forefront of international efforts, including action to deal with the threats posed by Iran’s nuclear programme and by its weak anti-money laundering and terrorist finance controls. We continue to work closely with the US and other international partners to utilise a dual-track strategy towards Iran of pressure and engagement. We have taken a leading role in negotiating international financial measures to maintain pressure on the Iranian Government and to protect our financial systems from abuse.
Key measures that we have taken in the past few years include negotiating an international asset freeze against two Iranian banks—bank Melli and bank Sepah—negotiating FATF statements calling on states to protect their financial systems from money laundering and terrorist finance risks emanating from Iran, negotiating an EC regulation requiring banks to undertake enhanced due diligence on Iranian transactions and adopting new domestic powers in the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 to allow us to impose financial restrictions in response to external money laundering, terrorist finance or weapons of mass destruction proliferation risks.
Taken
together, those measures and others constitute a robust package of measures
to protect our financial sector, which places the UK at the forefront of international
action to tackle the threats posed by illicit financing linked to Iran. I hope
that that presentation of the history over the past few years has illuminated
some of the concerns to which my hon. Friend has drawn the
attention of the House. I hope that my hon. Friend welcomes the robust stance
that the UK Government have taken and will continue to take on those matters.
House adjourned.
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the new United States Administration on future policy towards Iran.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown): My Lords, the Foreign Secretary met the new US Secretary of State on 3 February for detailed talks on Iran. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s political director took part yesterday in talks with his US opposite number and officials from China, France, Germany and Russia. FCO officials both here and in Washington have been in close touch with the new Administration. We will continue to work closely together on this issue.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Is not the firm, pragmatic approach of President Obama exactly the policy that we should be fully supporting? Must not human rights always be central to our considerations, and what are the latest developments concerning the British Council? Does my noble friend agree that underlying economic and political weaknesses in Iran suggest that there may be more room for leverage in negotiations than is sometimes supposed? Is not our task to win Iran, with its great history, into playing a positive role in the region, rather than to humiliate it?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, my noble friend raises a series of important interrelated points. President Obama has made it clear that he indeed wants fundamentally to revisit the US relationship with Iran, and I think he will be guided by exactly the pragmatism that my noble friend suggests. He said that it will take several months, and that is right, because we want to make sure that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater—and the baby is the very important E3+3 negotiation on the nuclear programme. Yes, we need to broaden the contacts and discussion with Iran, but we need to indicate that there is no backing off from our fundamental requirement that it does not proceed with a nuclear weapons programme, and, indeed, that we secure improvements on issues such as human rights. In that regard, the closing of the British Council office is a very sad setback.
Lord
Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we on
these Benches must congratulate Her Majesty's Government on their success: the
new American Secretary of State
5 Feb 2009 : Column 758
Does the Minister agree that those who say that the worst thing we could do to President Ahmadinejad and his hard-line regime is to open a dialogue and make it quite clear that we do not intend to work to overthrow the regime, as his regime thrives on confrontation and the belief that the whole world is against Iran; but that encouraging those in Iran who are not fully behind this rather nasty regime is exactly what we should be doing?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, I say in a mischievous spirit similar to that of the noble Lord’s opening remarks that it takes a Liberal Democrat to notice these small points about pecking orders. Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for it. On his second point, he is correct in that any broader engagement with the regime in Iran must undermine that regime’s tendency to fall back on populist, nationalist arguments of isolation, yet the real challenge for the Obama Administration is to find credible interlocutors in Iran—not people who posture but those who will deliver real policy results from such a dialogue.
Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, I should perhaps declare an interest in this topic. I re-established relations with Iran in 1986 after an interval of many years only to have those relations broken off two weeks later, on Valentine’s Day, by the issuing of the fatwa about the book published at that time. That indicates that the matter should be approached with considerable precaution. I remember a 1920s railway timetable for Chevening which disclosed in a list of embassies in London that then only three embassies represented Asian countries: Japan, China and Persia. Does that not underline the importance of trying to establish terms with that Government while warning against the hazards that lie ahead?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord offers wise advice. President Obama has indicated that it will take some months and a lot of consultation to arrive at any new policy initiative but that this revisiting of policy should not be mistaken as in some way going soft on the nuclear issue. It was again confirmed in the talks on 3 and 4 February to which I referred that the Americans want to move prudently to broaden the contact in a way that does not compromise the fundamental objectives which we continue to seek and which have remained constant from the previous Administration to this one.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, has the Minister made any representations to the authorities in Iran about the virtual closure of the British Council’s operation in that country? What lessons does he draw from the launch of a new missile in Iran earlier this week?
Lord
Malloch-Brown: My Lords, on the first point,
the Foreign Secretary is making, or has made, a Written Statement on this. The
British Council was forced to
5 Feb 2009 : Column 759
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, I agree fully with the Question asked by my noble friend Lord Judd, but does the Minister believe that the success of our policy towards Iran will depend largely on its policy in relation to us? Secondly, does he believe that, with the forthcoming presidential elections, there is likely to be a better policy arrangement between us and Iran?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, we have to see what the elections bring. We have all read the interesting reports of reform candidates regathering their courage and their organisational capacity to run, as they believe from opinion polls that they have support. That has been covered in the media. However, it is probably very imprudent to comment in this House on Iranian elections, as I suspect that we would handicap the horses that we would like to see win.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, with regard to the other worthy policy objectives concerning our relations with Iran, will the noble Lord include an exhortation to the Iranian head of state that he should no longer express the wish and desire that the state of Israel be expunged?
Lord
Malloch-Brown: My Lords, I think that the whole
world has agreed that what he said is absolutely abhorrent; he has said it not
just once but on many occasions. It goes back to my earlier point: however much
we want to find a better dialogue with Iran, we have to find credible interlocutors.
The President, in many of the things he says, raises doubts about whether he
is such an interlocutor.
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Mrs. Nadine Dorries (Mid-Bedfordshire) (Con): What recent assessment he has made of Iran's nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Bill Rammell): We remain seriously concerned about Iran's nuclear activities. It is difficult to believe its claim that its nuclear programme is intended for purely peaceful purposes. Iran continues to enrich uranium and to increase its capacity to enrich uranium in defiance of five UN Security Council resolutions. It is failing to co-operate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency. We will continue to work closely with international partners to persuade Iran to suspend enrichment and to engage in substantive negotiations, leading to a diplomatic solution to the issue.
Mrs. Dorries: We are all aware that Iran trains, supports and arms Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Given that it is reported that Iran will be nuclear-ready by the end of this year, what steps are being taken to ensure that Iran does not enable its favoured terrorist groups to make use of its impending nuclear capability?
Bill Rammell: That is a real issue of concern. We remain fundamentally committed to resolving it diplomatically and to the E3 plus 3 dual-track strategy, but that means, bluntly, that Iran has a stark choice. There will be increasingly tough sanctions to persuade the Iranians to change course. However, if they take the alternative path, there can be a dialogue that will lead to full negotiations if the Iranians suspend their enrichment-related activities. That is the argument that we are putting forward. That is the offer that we are seeking to get Iran to engage with, and we will be looking to work on that with the new US Administration when they are formed next week.
Paddy Tipping (Sherwood) (Lab): Given that the Russian Government have some relationship with the Iranian regime and considerable nuclear expertise, what discussion is my hon. Friend having with Russian counterparts to bring forward in Iran a nuclear programme that is for domestic purposes only?
13 Jan 2009 : Column 123
Bill Rammell: That is a regular feature of our discussions with Russia. As part of the E3 plus 3 process, an offer is on the table from Russia to secure on an external basis Iran's reported civil nuclear needs. That is why I strongly urge Iran to take the offer that is on the table, engage and find a resolution to the issue.
Mr. Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): The middle east region is a powder keg at the moment. Given the basis on which the overthrow of Saddam Hussein took place in Iraq, what assurances can the Minister give the people of the United Kingdom that the information that he is giving about Iran is accurate and dependable?
Bill Rammell: It is clear that Dr.el-Baradei from the IAEA has reported on Iran four times since 2008. It is also clear that Iran kept its nuclear programme hidden from the world for two decades before it was exposed in 2002. There are outstanding issues for which the IAEA has asked for an explanation but those explanations have not been forthcoming and that is why I believe strongly that the situation is very serious indeed.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con): The Minister talked about the need for tougher sanctions and we agree that such sanctions are needed to complement what we hope will be direct United States engagement with Iran. But will he not share my dismay that we still have no EU-wide ban on either export credits guarantees or on new investments in Iranian oil and gas? Have the Government now given up hope of achieving EU agreement on such measures, and if not, when does he think they will be agreed?
Bill Rammell: No. We have been at the forefront of arguing coherently
and strongly that to make this dual-track strategy work, the sanctions need
to be as robust and effective as possible. The EU, at our prompting, has gone
beyond the rest of the international community, for example, freezing the assets
of more entities, including Bank Melli. But I take nothing off the table. We
will keep trying to ensure that the stick of sanctions is as strong and effective
as possible to encourage and persuade Iran to take the fork of diplomacy.
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cm090113/debtext/90113-0002.htm#09011355000014
Mr. David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): What recent assessment he has made of potential military threats posed by Iran.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Hutton): We routinely assess the military capabilities of other nations’ armed forces, including those of Iran.
Mr. Jones: Last month, Iran conducted a major naval exercise in the gulf of Oman, involving more than 60 warships and military aircraft. Next month, the first shipments of liquefied natural gas will start sailing from Qatar to Milford Haven, and in due course LNG from the Persian gulf will account for some 25 per cent. of the gas consumed in this country. To what extent does the Secretary of State recognise the military threat of Iran to the security of British energy supply and to what extent is the UK working with its allies and the Gulf Co-operation Council to counter it?
Mr. Hutton: I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. He will understand that we take a close interest in these matters. Iran has the ability to contribute not just to greater global security, but to greater global energy security. Unfortunately, it is not doing that, so its influence remains malign and it poses a significant threat not just to global security, but to regional security. Naturally, we keep all those matters under careful review and we discuss all these concerns closely with our allies in the Gulf and elsewhere, but it remains the policy of Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that energy supply routes through the gulf of Aden remain open, and we have forces in place there to achieve just that.
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): I am unsure whether my right hon. Friend will have seen yesterday’s report by Steve Erlanger in The New York Times. It stated:
“Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the last two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs.”
That came from The New York Times, not any other source. Does the Secretary of State agree that Iran’s involvement in the current crisis, including the smuggling of Fajr-3 missiles into the hands of Hamas, is a great danger and that the warm relationship between the leadership of Hamas and the current anti-Semitic leadership of Iran also indicates just what a poisonous role Iran is playing generally in the region and further afield?
Mr. Hutton: I did not see that edition of The New York Times,
unlike my right hon. Friend. I shall just repeat my earlier comment that Iran’s
influence in the region is malign. We want the situation to be transformed,
and we are actively pursuing better dialogue and engagement with Iran, but there
can be no regional
2 Jan 2009 : Column 5
security as long as Iran continues to support not just terrorist organisations in the middle east, but, for example, Taliban elements in Afghanistan, and as long as Iran continues to have active and close links with some of the terrorists and insurgent groups in Iraq. That has to change. Iran has suffered as a result of the isolation that her foreign policy has brought upon her, and that can change if Iran changes her attitude and approach to these issues. Her Majesty’s Government are clear about the need for peace and stability in the middle east, and that is not helped by the current policies of the Iranian Government.
Mr. Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre) (Con): Iran can pose such a local and strategic threat because of the technological assistance on missile defence and missile development that it continues to receive from both China and Russia. Can the Secretary of State tell us what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to try to stop that flow from China and Russia?
Mr. Hutton: I do not want to go into the detail of that point on the Floor of the House; I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand. We share his concerns about the possibility of defence forces in Iran being enhanced by such technology and we are in discussions with several nations to try to prevent that from happening.
Mr. Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con): The news coming from Washington, from President-elect Obama, is that he seeks, and is willing, to engage with Iran. Is that a lead that the Government might want to follow?
Mr. Hutton: We have diplomatic relations with Iran. As I said earlier, we seek an active engagement and dialogue with the Government of Iran, because they are potentially significant partners for peace and security in that region of the world, which is so sorely troubled by the absence of security, but that engagement has to be on the basis of respect for other nations’ borders and frontiers and the right of other nations to live in peace and security. Currently, the Iranian Government do not respect those principles, and until they do, Iran will remain an international pariah state.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East) (Con): May I associate those on the Opposition Front Bench with the tribute paid to our service personnel who have died or been wounded since the House last met?
In the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones), the Secretary of State seemed to accept that Iran could, if it chose, pose a major naval threat to our fuel supplies. Does he accept that in countering such a threat our attack submarine fleet would be crucial? For that reason, will he consider restoring the promise that the Government made in 2004 to build eight Astute submarines?
Mr. Hutton: We have looked very carefully at all these matters. As the
hon. Gentleman knows, we are currently envisaging building seven Astute submarines,
and that remains the Government’s position. I do not dispute the important
role of the ship submersible nuclear fleet in securing those trade routes, and
I can assure him that, along with other naval assets from this country and our
NATO partners, we retain credible naval forces designed to ensure that our energy
supply routes, especially from the middle east, remain open.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/
cmhansrd/cm090112/debtext/90112-0001.htm#0901122000007
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which states have reported to the UN Sanctions Committee impediments under their domestic law to the implementation of the assets freeze on designated persons and entities in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 1737 of 2006, 1747 of 2007 and 1803 of 2008; and whether the UK has offered assistance to any such state in this regard.
David Miliband: Member states' reports affirming their implementation of the measures contained in UN Security Council resolutions 1737 of 2006, 1747 of 2007 and 1803 of 2008 are publicly available online at:
http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1737/memberstatesreports.shtml
The 1737 Iran Sanctions Committee has never found it necessary to investigate any impediments under any member state’s domestic law concerning implementation of the assets freezes as a result of these reports.
The UK works with other states to provide assistance on the implementation
of asset freezes under the UN sanctions against Iran through bi-lateral discussions
and multilateral groups, such as the EU and the Financial Action Task Force.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090507/text/90507w0008.htm#090507112000092
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs with reference to the answer of 15 September 2008, Official Report, column 2185W, on Iran: nuclear weapons, if his Department will assess the effect of (a) EU and (b) UN sanctions on the Iranian (i) economy and (ii) nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes.
David Miliband: There are no plans at present to issue a formal study on the effect of EU and UN sanctions on the Iranian economy and nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes. However, we regularly monitor the impact of sanctions on Iran.
Our assessment is that UN sanctions have made it more difficult for Iran to procure items for its nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes. Sanctions continue to affect parts of the Iranian economy, particularly through the disruption of the international operations of a number of Iranian companies and those Iranian banks listed in the sanctions. Anecdotal evidence from sources inside Iran indicates that sanctions have increased the inconvenience and general cost of doing business.
EU sanctions, which implement and go beyond UN measures, have had a similar
effect on a larger number of individuals and entities.
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cm090430/text/90430w0005.htm#09043032000043
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether it is his policy that suspension by Iran of its uranium enrichment programme should be a precondition for negotiations on its nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement.
David Miliband: The UK fully subscribes to the E3+3 group of countries’
dual-track strategy, which makes clear that Iran must suspend its enrichment-related
activities, as required by five UN Security Council Resolutions, before full
negotiations can begin. Iran needs to demonstrate the exclusively peaceful nature
of its nuclear programme. We and our E3+3 partners will continue to try and
persuade Iran that negotiations and transparency present the best route to resolving
this issue.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090427/text/90427w0009.htm#09042735000058
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs with reference to the Statement during the Prime Minister's address to the US Congress that Iran should cease its threats and suspend its nuclear programme, what steps the Government is taking to secure this objective.
30 Mar 2009 : Column 859W
Bill Rammell: The Government remain committed to the E3+3 dual-track
strategy—of pressure and engagement—to address the Iran nuclear issue. On the
engagement aide, the US has been clear about its desire for a relationship based
on “mutual respect” as President Obama made clear in a message to the Iranian
people on 19 March 2009. The E3+3’s generous offer of June 2008 remains on the
table, which offers Iran a wide range of political and economic benefits, together
with all it would need to develop and operate a civilian nuclear programme.
On the pressure side, the UN Security Council has agreed five resolutions on
the issue, three of which put in place sanctions against Iran. The EU has gone
beyond these to put in place further measures. We have been clear that if Iran
chooses not to accept the US and E3+3 offers, further, tough measures will follow.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090330/text/90330w0007.htm#09033013000013
Mr. Hollobone: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent assessment he has made of the state of diplomatic relations with Iran.
Bill Rammell: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said many
times that the UK would like to have a positive and constructive relationship
with Iran—a relationship which is based on mutual respect and is not a prisoner
of history. We believe that we have important shared interests in Iran's neighbourhood,
including stability, security and economic development in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, we and the rest of the international community have significant and
legitimate concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions, its activity in the region,
and its repression of its own people. Iran must address these if our relationship
is to move forward. The Iranian authorities are also responsible for unacceptable
harassment of our staff in Tehran, both UK based and Iranian—pressure which
has forced the British Council to suspend its operation in Iran, and which obstructs
the legitimate activities of our embassy. We have raised this with the Iranian
authorities on numerous occasions, and we regret that they have done nothing
to address this.
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cm090323/text/90323w0006.htm#09032312000073
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to the answer to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) of 5 March 2009, Official Report, column 1747W, on Iran: nuclear power, what further sanctions he has considered pursuing at the United Nations.
Bill Rammell: The E3+3 made a generous offer to Iran in June 2008. This offer remains on the table. The offer presents Iran with an opportunity to transform its relationship with the international community and enjoy many significant benefits, if it suspends its enrichment programme and negotiates.
However, in the event of Iran failing to take up this opportunity and continuing
to disregard its international obligations to the UN and the International Atomic
Energy Agency, we will be forced to consider further measures, including the
consideration of further significant sanctions through the UN.
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cm090323/text/90323w0006.htm#09032312000073
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the Government's policy is on the application of financial sanctions against (a) individuals, (b) entities and (c) organisations involved in Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme; and if he will make a statement.
David Miliband: The Government fully support the application of financial and other sanctions against individuals, entities and organisations that are involved with, or support, Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Five UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs) require Iran to suspend enrichment related activities, three of which impose sanctions. The UNSCRs require states to freeze assets owned or controlled by individuals, entities and organisations involved with, or supporting, nuclear activities in Iran. They must also exercise vigilance over Iranian banks.
The Government also strongly support the Common Position and Council Regulation
adopted by the EU which implemented UNSCR 1803 in full. Indeed, the EU went
beyond the UN by extending financial vigilance against Iran, including a further
autonomous asset freeze on individuals and entities involved in Iran's nuclear
and ballistic missile programmes, but not specifically listed by the UN.
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cm090316/text/90316w0008.htm#09031619000088
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received of breaches of the prohibition in UN Security Council Resolution 1747 against the sale, transfer or supply of arms or related material from Iran; and if he will make a statement.
David Miliband: I am aware of reports that Iran has breached UN Security Council Resolution 1747 by attempting to transfer arms-related material via the MV Monchegorsk, a Cypriot-flagged vessel.
We understand that the MV Monchegorsk was ordered into Limassol harbour by the government of Cyprus in late January, where it now remains. Cypriot Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou has said that the Monchegorsk was in “clear” breach of UN sanctions banning Iran from exporting arms and related material. Cyprus has dealt with the situation effectively and entirely in line with UN and EU requirements.
We continue to urge Iran to comply with international law. It is unacceptable
that Iran acts in breach of UN Resolutions and such action only serves to further
undermine international confidence in Iran.
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cm090313/text/90313w0005.htm#09031364000066
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment has been made of the merits of imposing further (a) UN and (b) EU sanctions on Iran in light of Iran's failure to respond to UN Security Council resolutions demanding the suspension of its enrichment-related activities; and if he will make a statement.
David Miliband: We have supported five UN Security Council resolutions that require Iran to halt its uranium enrichment programme and co-operate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA's most recent report makes clear that Iran has done neither.
I strongly urge Iran to comply with these obligations by halting enrichment
and engaging with the E3+3. It can then enjoy all the benefits set out in the
E3+3's generous offer of June 2008. However, if it continues to refuse to co-operate
with the international community we shall do all we can to pursue further sanctions
in the UN and the EU.
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cm090305/text/90305w0007.htm#09030548000011
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the evidential basis is for the assumption that Israel has nuclear weapons, as set out at page 14 of his Department's publication, Lifting the Nuclear Shadow: Creating the conditions for abolishing nuclear weapons.
Bill Rammell: Information in the public domain, has led to a widely
held assumption that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, though Israel has always
refused to either confirm or deny this. The UK has consistently urged Israel
to join the non proliferation treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090227/text/90227w0024.htm#09022737000234
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what occasions since January 2008 (a) he and (b) other Ministers in his Department have discussed with their Israeli counterparts Israel's possession of nuclear weapons.
Bill Rammell: Ministers have had no discussions, since January 2008, with our Israeli counterparts regarding their possession of nuclear weapons.
We have on a number of occasions called on Israel to accede to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state and also to the Chemical
Weapons Convention, and will continue to do so.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090223/text/90223w0081.htm#09022473000158
Gordon Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of Iran's level of co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Bill Rammell: We assess that Iran's level of cooperation with the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been inadequate in a number of critical areas.
The IAEA Director General's report of 19 November 2008 highlighted Iran's failure
to implement transparency measures including the Additional Protocol; provide
substantive information on their alleged studies with a possible military dimension;
provide access to the heavy water reactor at Arak on 26 October 2008.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090113/text/90113w0001.htm#09011457000026
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Prime Minister whether he discussed the Iranian state shareholding in the French state Uranium Enrichment Company during the visit of President Sarkozy on 8 December 2008.
The Prime Minister: I discussed a wide range of issue with President Sarkozy. I refer the hon. Member to the press conference I held with President Sarkozy and President Barroso on 8 December. A transcript is available on the No. 10 website at:
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page17733
A copy has also been placed in the Library of the House.
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cm090112/text/90112w0012.htm#09011231000008
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Prime Minister what matters concerning (a) Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal and (b) Iran’s nuclear programme, he discussed in his meeting with his Israeli counterpart on 16 December 2008.
The Prime Minister: I discussed a wide range of issues with Prime Minister
Olmert.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/
cm090112/text/90112w0012.htm#09011231000008
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