Actions of Iranian Regime: UK Response

Before we come to the urgent question on Iran, I remind the House that there is a criminal case currently before the courts in which the accused have been charged under the National Security Act 2023 with offences relating to the targeting of UK-based journalists. This case is sub judice, and no reference should be made to it during our proceedings. There is also a separate case involving alleged terrorism offences in relation to a target in London. This case is not sub judice, because no charges have yet been brought, but hon. and right hon. Members will wish to take care to avoid saying anything that could prejudice the ongoing police investigation and any subsequent trial.

16:26:00

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the UK’s response to the actions of the Iranian regime.

We have long had concerns over Iran’s malign activity. Iran’s continued support to aligned groups, like Hezbollah and Hamas, undermines regional stability. It supports Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine through the provision of unmanned aerial vehicles and ballistic missiles, and it poses a threat to UK nationals, Iranian dissidents and Jewish people in the United Kingdom. This Government will hold Iran accountable for its hostile activities. The Home Secretary announced on 19 May that Jonathan Hall’s review delivered recommendations to tackle state threats. We are committed to taking them forward, including through the creation of a new state threats proscription-like tool. In April, we sanctioned the Iranian-backed, Swedish-based Foxtrot criminal network for its role in attacks against targets across Europe. In September, in response to Iran’s transfer of ballistic missiles to Russia, we ended Iran’s air services agreement and stopped Iran Air flying directly into the UK. We have placed Iran on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, enhancing transparency regarding foreign influence in the UK. We have so far designated 31 individuals in relation to malign Iranian activity. The UK now has more than 450 sanctions against Iranian-linked individuals and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety.

As we mark the 20th anniversary of the London terrorist attacks, the victims, survivors and their families, and the emergency services personnel who responded that day, continue to be in our thoughts. Two weeks have passed since the US airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Does the Minister have an assessment of their impact, and what is his response to the Iranian regime now prohibiting co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and its inspectors leaving Iran? Given Tehran’s refusal to co-operate, are the Minister and the Department in discussions with partners about applying snapback sanctions and other measures? Is he concerned that this demonstrates that Iran will continue to pursue its entire nuclear weapons programme? Given the information received through discussions with America, Israel and other intelligence partners, will the Government finally come off the fence about the strikes and agree with the Opposition that they were absolutely necessary? On our interests in the region, can the Minster assure us that he is taking continued steps to bolster the security of our military assets and personnel, and what assessment has he made of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and the threats that they may continue to pose to our interests? We agree that Iran can never have a nuclear bomb, but the regime is a fundamental menace in so many other ways. It sponsors terrorism across the middle east, and threatens our own country with sophisticated plots. What work is taking place across Government to respond to the threats posed to dissidents in the UK, and to those with family members in Iran who face persecution as the Iranian regime seeks to threaten and blackmail them? What more will the Minister do to take down the finance structures propping up the regime’s destabilising activities, and to stand with the brave people of Iran, including human rights defenders, who face the most barbaric oppression? With the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies in a weakened state due to Israel and America’s actions, does he agree that this is a moment for the Government to publish a serious strategy to roll back the regime’s malign influence? Finally, can the Minister give an update on the discussions he has had with partners about the US-led plans for a ceasefire in Gaza, freeing the hostages, aid access and securing the removal of Hamas?

I thank the right hon. Lady for her questions. I am afraid I will not provide a detailed commentary from the Dispatch Box on the extent of the damage from the strikes, for reasons that I am sure she and the rest of the House understand. I can confirm that we are in discussions about the snapback mechanism. As the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I have said, we cannot see Iran getting a nuclear weapon. Snapback is an important lever, and we are talking with our E3 partners and the Americans about what role snapback can play. We hope to see a diplomatic solution, which is ultimately the most enduring way to ensure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, but we will continue to consider all diplomatic tools, including snapback. The right hon. Lady asked a range of other important questions. I confirm that we keep regional security questions, particularly in relation to our bases, under close review. Since I last had an opportunity to face her across the Dispatch Box, there have clearly been quite a few changes in relation to events in the region, including in our travel advice. I recognise that this has been a fraught period for those with interests in the region. I am glad to see the ceasefire between Iran and Israel hold. We are encouraged by the reports on the efforts to secure a Gaza ceasefire, but I am not in a position to provide much further commentary at this stage from the Dispatch Box, and I will not go any further than we have already gone from the Dispatch Box on the strikes against Iran.

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I wonder whether the Minister might be able to help us. We had before us the Iranian ambassador, who made it clear that he wanted to be able to continue to negotiate. Given the way in which the joint comprehensive plan of action fell apart and the fact that the Iranians were in the middle of negotiating when there was the attack by the Israelis, if a significant segment of the Iranian regime wants to continue to negotiate, what is Britain doing to ensure that we have jaw-jaw, not war-war?

My right hon. Friend asks vital questions. We do want serious negotiation with the Iranian Government about nuclear weapons and, indeed, many other things. The Foreign Secretary sought to play a full role in providing an opportunity for talks rather than conflict, but those talks cannot be spun out indefinitely. The deadline for snapback, which was referenced by the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), is fast approaching, so we are under considerable time pressure. That does not mean we do not want talks to happen, but they must happen at pace and with real seriousness.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

The Iranian regime is utterly committed to destabilising the middle east and exporting terrorism globally, and under the auspices of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is focused on threatening our own citizens in the UK. The Minister mentioned the introduction of the new power of proscription to cover state threats following Jonathan Hall’s review of terrorism legislation. Will he confirm that the Government will use that new power to proscribe the IRGC? Iranian communities across the UK will perhaps feel the threat from Iran most severely. I also recently visited the headquarters of the Community Security Trust, which impressed on me just how vital it is, at a time when many Jewish people are feeling worried and afraid, that the CST continues to receive our support. Will the Minister outline what further steps the Government will take to protect these communities as well as the wider UK public from Iranian-sponsored terrorism?

Let me be absolutely clear. We will not tolerate any Iran-backed threats on UK soil: not against British Jewry; not against journalists; not against any British national or anyone who is resident here. As both the Foreign Secretary and I have made clear to our Iranian counterparts, we know the threat Iran poses to those in the UK, including to dissidents, journalists and the Jewish community. It must cease that behaviour now. We will not hesitate to take the strongest possible action. The hon. Lady asks an important question about proscription. Given that the IRGC is an arm of the state, we have taken the view that it is important to look at where the mechanisms for taking action against other states can be improved. That is why Jonathan Hall did his review and why, on 19 May, the Home Secretary made the announcement that she did. I reassure the House that the IRGC is fully sanctioned in the UK. Proscription is a slightly different question. It is for those reasons that Jonathan Hall has done his review.

We are potentially moving to a point where proscription of the IRGC needs to be looked at considerably more strongly as a mechanism for dealing with the transnational repression that Iran is getting away with. The murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022 saw a wave of Iranian dissidents attempting to rise up against their own regime, demonstrating the bravery that so many people in this country would applaud. Those people, who then had to flee, now find themselves at the mercy of Iranian operatives here and in our allied countries. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to preventing transnational repression, but can he say more specifically about what is happening to support Iranian dissidents in the UK and those who are still seeking to demonstrate the horrors of Iran in our allied countries in the middle east?

I do not want anyone in the House to be under any illusions about the seriousness with which we take the IRGC’s activities. That is why we commissioned the Jonathan Hall review. That is why it is on the enhanced tier of FIRS—the foreign influence registration scheme. That is why it is fully sanctioned. That is why we have continued to impose sanctions in response to Iranian aggression. I know well the threat that Iran poses not just to British nationals but to journalists as well, as my hon. Friend eloquently points out. I have met many of those journalists. I am appalled that some of those threats are being made here in the UK. I will not comment too much on law enforcement and intelligence activity, but I have been clear with the Iranian ambassador that the full force of the law and all our capabilities will be focused on those who seek to harm people here.

Omid Khalili, a British citizen and renowned Iranian broadcaster, hosts a phone-in reaching over 30 million Iranians. He has been targeted by the Iranian regime. The detail has been laid out in UnHerd by the journalist David Rose, but in summary his wife, parents and sister have been detained in Iran, interrogated, threatened and their passports have been confiscated. The aim of that is to blackmail Mr Khalili into coming back to Iran, where he will certainly be arrested and very probably executed. Those acts of intimidation are carried out by the Iranian secret police and the IRGC, and facilitated by so-called diplomats in the Iranian embassy here. We cannot ignore this state-sponsored blackmail, so what the Government ought to do is expel Iranian officials complicit in that behaviour and finally proscribe the IRGC.

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the pattern of Iranian detentions in Iran and some of the threats that we have already described that are sought to be prosecuted here. I will not say more about the state threat here, as I think I have probably laid out more than I would like to, but it is incredibly important that people are aware of the way in which the Iranian state has operated and continues to operate within Iran. We are deeply familiar as a Government —as I know our predecessors were—with the pattern and tactics of Iranian detentions. We continue to provide consular support wherever we can. We are constrained by the Iranian refusal to recognise dual nationality, which often means that those with links to the UK are not in a position, although they should be, to get consular assistance from the UK. We will continue to do everything we can to change that.

An Iranian-origin woman who lives in Acton came to see me the other day. Although she is relieved that her 90-something grandparents are not among the civilian casualties from Netanyahu’s US-backed bombings the other day, she reports that the hated hard-line regime in Iran is cracking down even further on its beleaguered population. I urge my hon. Friend—I think he hinted at this—to proceed with caution. It is a very delicate situation and the consequences are manifold, including Iranian refugees washing up on our shores in dinghies, which did not use to be widespread. There is a temptation to go in all guns blazing, but I urge my hon. Friend to do all he can to get a diplomatic solution. We all want to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but to do so in the right way.

I confirm for my hon. Friend that we are doing everything we can to try to see a diplomatic solution.

I have to say that I think the Minister is right in making the judgment about whether to proscribe the IRGC. I support the comment made by the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). The theocratic regime in Iran has never been weaker domestically, internationally or among its regional neighbours, so there is now a real premium on working with our European and regional allies to explore all avenues of progress through more reasonable elements within Iran.

I know of the right hon. Gentleman’s long commitment to these issues. So many right hon. and hon. Members have had encounters with the Iranian diaspora and, indeed, more moderate Iranians. The Iranian people are not the enemy of the UK. There is a broad, cultured, moderate population there who would like to live a better life, and who see their families oppressed in the way the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) described. We must do everything we can to support them.

I thank my hon. Friend and his diplomats in the FCDO for their work and the emphasis on diplomacy. Does my hon. Friend agree with me about the importance of soft power in this situation, and that the BBC Persian service is doing excellent work in explaining news in a truthful way? Does he agree further that we ought to be extending a hand of friendship to the Iranian people at a very delicate and sensitive time in world politics?

I very much agree with my hon. Friend, on both the importance of diplomacy and the importance of BBC Persian, through which the UK makes an important contribution for Farsi speakers across the world. I have met many BBC Persian service journalists and they provide a vital service.

Does the Minister think it more or less likely that, as a result of the American airstrikes, Iran will get a nuclear bomb?

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman would expect, I will not comment on assessment at this stage, given the security and intelligence implications thereof.

Like many Members, I have constituents who are stranded in Iran. We have all heard what the Minister has told the House this afternoon, and I know that he takes the safety of British nationals overseas extremely seriously. Will he assure the House that all practical steps are being taken to extend consular support, which is currently being frustrated and denied by the Iranian regime?

The UK has been able to provide a very limited amount by way of consular support in Iran for some years, for exactly the reasons that my hon. Friend mentioned—it is frustrated by the Iranian Government—and our warnings and travel advice are clear. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for providing me with an opportunity to confirm to the House that we have now reopened our embassy in Tehran after a temporary closure, and a chargé is in place. We will continue to play our full role to ensure the safety of British nationals in Iran and, indeed, to contribute to the diplomatic developments we have discussed.

The Israeli and United States military action has destroyed three of the facilities and, of course, killed some of the scientists and IRGC operatives who have been involved in the nuclear programme. However, it is suggested that the Iranians removed their nuclear material to another site before that action took place, and now, of course, Iran has withdrawn its co-operation with everyone in terms of inspections and checks on what is happening. What action is the Minister taking to make sure that Iran is brought to the negotiating table to establish what has happened to that nuclear material, and indeed to ensure that Iran is not going to continue to enhance its nuclear capability?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his important question. I am sure I will receive complaints from his party’s Front Benchers, but he will understand that I will not be commenting on the assessment of the strike or on intelligence matters. But I will say that it is absolutely vital that IAEA inspectors are allowed back into Iran; that is the fundamental basis on which trust can be built for a diplomatic solution. Now that a ceasefire is in place, the inspectors must come back in.

People across Newcastle-under-Lyme watch events in the middle east week in, week out with anger, horror, sadness and frustration. I am grateful to the shadow Foreign Secretary for bringing this urgent question to the House this afternoon. May I ask the Minister two things? First, what specific engagement has happened between the British Government and our regional partners in the middle east? I am not sure he has touched on the specifics. Secondly, in an answer he referred to a state threats mechanism. Can he elaborate a little more on what that means? If he cannot do that on the Floor of the House, I will be happy to have a cup of tea with him so that he can tell me in detail.

I would be—[Interruption.] There is an amusing degree of lightness from the Opposition Benches about security matters. I would be delighted to discuss this matter further. The question at issue in the Jonathan Hall report is the state threats proscription-like tool. I accept that the name is rather clunky, but it is focused on the fact that a state, in this case, has proved a persistent threat in the UK, using methods unlike those usually employed by a state. I will not say very much more about that, but Jonathan Hall has identified a gap and it is that gap that we are seeking to fill. I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issue further.

Last week, in the most tawdry and cynical fashion, a decision—born in anger and driven by revenge—was bulldozed through this House. I wonder: while the Government were discussing proscribing Palestine Action, did the Minister or any of his Foreign Office colleagues advise that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could also be added to the proscribed list? If they did not, why not? Perhaps he could explain to the House why his Government consider the IRGC to be less of a threat to our national security than Palestine Action.

In my last answer, I tried to illustrate why proscription of the IRGC is a complicated question, given gaps in the existing legislation. That is one of the reasons why Jonathan Hall has done his review. We are committed to taking forward his recommendations.

The Minister has set out a desire to get Iran back to the negotiating table. Can he say what steps he and his colleagues at the Foreign Office are taking to ensure that they get that outcome?

The Foreign Office—the whole ministerial team and our diplomats—are focused on the concrete steps that would be required. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) asked an important question about the IAEA and there was an important question about snapback. There are a range of serious and impactful diplomatic measures that can be used to try to make diplomatic progress to guarantee that Iran will not acquire a nuclear weapon. I recognise that there is a long history of nuclear diplomacy with Iran that has not been a success; that is why I said in one of my previous answers that the timeframe is not unlimited. We will take steps, including snapback, if we do not make progress on diplomacy.

Many people believe that the pre-emptive strike on Iran by Israel and the USA was illegal under international law. Most intelligence agencies, including the director of American intelligence, said that there was no viable evidence of an active nuclear weapons programme. Can the Minister tell the House what the UK intelligence agencies say?

I am not, for reasons obvious, going to provide a running commentary on the assessments of UK intelligence agencies.

The Defence Secretary has said, correctly, that Operation Midnight Hammer has alleviated a grave threat, but the Attorney General appears to be less clear and wonders if it was illegal, while the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary appear to sit on the fence. I am sorry to put the Minister on the spot, but does he agree with the Attorney General or the Defence Secretary?

With the greatest of respect to my predecessor, he will know that the Defence Secretary and the Attorney General do rather different roles. I do not think they are in disagreement, and in any case, collective responsibility would bind them both, and indeed me.

May I help the Minister share a little information with the House by asking him whether the Government know of any purpose for refining uranium-235 to 60% purity other than to build a nuclear weapon?

I am happy to be clear that that level of enrichment has no obvious civilian purpose. We are told that it was for research and development, but I think many observers have drawn exactly the same conclusion as the right hon. Gentleman.

The Minister will know that I support absolutely the decision to remove the nuclear arsenal from the hands of Iranian terrorists, who have pulled the trigger on various acts of terrorism against this nation and others. However, it is also clear that we are left with a difficult situation in Iran, and the calls for regime change leave vulnerable children even more in need. Is there more we can do to ensure that aid reaches women and children living in oppression and fear in Iran and the axis of evil?

As ever, the hon. Gentleman asks an important question focused on those who are vulnerable. We have sustained an embassy in Tehran, and I am pleased to announce that it has reopened. One of the roles of the embassy is to maintain engagement that is as wide as possible with wider Iranian society. There are obvious constraints, with which the hon. Gentleman will be familiar, but we do what we can where we can.