Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — House of Lords, 2021-12-02
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stephen Benn (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, when the history of this tragic and sad case comes to be written, great credit will be due to my noble friend Lord Collins for having instigated today’s debate which, if nothing else, is about keeping up the pressure which needs to be kept up after so many years. We should all be very grateful to my noble friend for doing that I turn to the right reverend Prelate’s maiden speech. It was a very moving personal story, and you could see the reaction of the House to it. It falls to me to congratulate her on her maiden speech, as it did earlier today to congratulate her colleague, who has now left his place, on his maiden speech. I made my maiden speech only seven weeks ago today and had the occasion on a subsequent day to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter on his maiden speech, so I have now reached three maiden speeches. I do not know if there are any more Bishops due into the House —someone ought to let me know Returning to this case, I, like other noble Lords, walked over to see Richard Ratcliffe when he was on hunger strike outside the FCDO. I echo what was said by my noble friend. It was shameful to see a hunger strike outside our own Foreign Office. I had never met him before. He looked tired, wan, cold and hungry. I did not keep him long. I told him that I had been invited over by my noble friend Lord Dubs and his eyes lit up, I must say, when he heard his name. I did not want to detain him for very long. It was much more important that he talked to the "Today" programme, who were waiting to speak to him, and to "Newsnight" and Channel 4 It was clear to me, in the very short conversation I had with him, that he does not understand what the Government’s position is on his case, and when I look back to the exchanges we had in this House on 15 November, most of the rest of the House do not understand. I almost feel, again in agreement with my noble friend Lord Dubs, that this is one of those debates where it might have been helpful if the Minister had spoken first. Then we could have examined what he had to tell us—and we are all looking forward to what he has to tell us—to see if we could understand more about the impasse that we face and is being faced now When I walked across there, incidentally, I thought of medieval history, because we have a statue of a hostage outside our Chamber, outside Peers’ Entrance. Richard I spent a year as a hostage, if I remember rightly I hope I am not being unduly unfair to the British Government, but I am beginning to wonder whether I am lobbying the wrong Government. I would like to explore the relationship between the British and American Governments. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said that, from the American point of view, it is a sovereign decision of a sovereign Government whether to pay the money, but I think everybody in this House today agrees that the money must be paid. Interestingly, I read in an internal briefing—it was not remotely secret in any way; it was just a regular internal briefing—from within the State Department that, on 5 September last year, the then foreign ministry spokesperson for the Iranian Government, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said: "The payment of the UK debt has nothing to do with the release of the dual prisoners. The UK government definitely has a 40-year debt to Iran, and it makes no difference whether a British official has acknowledged the debt or not." I must admit that I have never heard it said that the Iranians do not think there is a link. I would be interested to hear in the Minister’s reply what type of connection and contacts there have been between the Foreign Office and the Iran desk in the State Department Regarding the JCPOA talks which began in Vienna, which other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Austin, mentioned, on 21 October this year Robert Malley, who was leading those negotiations as the President’s special envoy, said that he was there "to have conversations with Iran to deal with regional issues and other issues." I would just like to explore whether those other issues might include anything related to the Nazanin case, because I think the House would like to know more about the relationship and the discussions between the British and American Governments. As has been pointed out already, former President Obama had no difficulty—I did not know it was flying cash over in a plane, or whatever it was—so there must be some mechanism by which this £400 million can be paid I will leave it there, but I think the Government owe the House, not to mention Richard Ratcliffe and his family, a better explanation and more effort than they have shown so far.