Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury for initiating this debate and Tulip Siddiq MP for her tireless campaigning. I also add my congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford on her most moving maiden speech.

This is not an issue between the people of Iran or the people of the UK. It is between two Governments. I do not believe there was ever a golden era of British diplomacy; it has always been about power, money and leverage. Having said that, when the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service were better staffed and we had more talented political leaders, I feel sure that this case would have been handled much better.

As it is, we are mired in a multi-level mud pile: a debt which an international court has said we owe, so we are breaking international law—no change there, then; a court case which no doubt has suited both sides to drag on for decades; the UK’s own legislation passed post Brexit, as my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti mentioned, which replaced the EU’s sanctions regime with its own, meaning that paying the acknowledged debt would contravene the UK’s own legislation; and, I suspect the main problem, relations with the USA, which could apply its own sanctions to UK entities and, more importantly, affect future trade agreements between the USA and the UK.

I believe the latter is dead in the water anyway until either Joe Biden or Boris Johnson goes. The Prime Minister’s active support for Mr Trump could hardly endear him to the current Administration. As has already been said, when asked whether the US would stand in the way of the UK meeting a payment to Iran, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that it was

“a sovereign decision for the United Kingdom.”

For heaven’s sake, what else was he going to say—“We have informed our 52nd state that we will not be buying so much as a pencil from them if they do not do as they are told”? I doubt it very much. As I said, there are multiple layers of mud.

The Government might be surprised to know that I agree that payment of the debt should not be linked to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release; nor should we be seen to give in to blackmail, as she and others are clearly political hostages. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s current sentence is linked to her demonstrating outside the Iranian embassy in 2009. No doubt, this is a trumped-up charge but, before we start to feel superior, is not the legislation currently going through Parliament intended to curb the right to protest and demonstrate? Similarly, countries have the right to decide whether or not to recognise dual nationals. Remember Australia, where a few parliamentarians had to stand again for election because they were not born there. Iran has this right, no matter how inconvenient it might be.

We are left with the human story of an individual who is being used a political pawn. Her rights and freedoms have been denied. Her family has been subjected to untold mental suffering. When I chaired ACAS, I witnessed the most incredible staff coming up with solutions—so many were unlikely, but they worked. Sometimes it is about changing the agenda. Completed deals do not have to be good deals—they just have to be acceptable to both sides. If the UK and Iranian Governments would consent, I would willingly travel to Tehran at my own expense to collect Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and bring her home. I am sure others in this Chamber tonight would do the same. It would not be part of any deal. It would not be linked with anything. I would promise not to make any statements which would hinder future relations. I express my solidarity with Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I suggest that the Government need to change their agenda.