Monday 19th January 2026

(1 day, 14 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

David Davis Portrait David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

This despicable regime goes in for state terrorism at home and abroad, and its principal instrument for terrorism abroad is the IRGC. This is now the sixth time that I have called on Prime Ministers and Ministers to proscribe the IRGC. The excuse given historically is that we want to keep our embassy open, but the embassy is now shut, demonstrating how futile that argument is. When will we proscribe that terrorist organisation?

Hamish Falconer Portrait Mr Falconer
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I just want to be clear about the status of our embassy in Tehran. While it is true that we have withdrawn our staff, we have not closed our embassy. I expect that the embassy will be fully functional again soon—I hope with some of this behind us.

On the IRGC, which the right hon. Gentleman has asked about on several occasions, as have others in the House, we conducted the Jonathan Hall review and he found that it is important that we have a tool that is focused on the particularities of the threats from Iran and the IRGC. That is a different threat from that which emanates from a simple terrorist group, if I may use that language, and we are committed to taking forward those recommendations through the creation of a state threats proscription-like tool, and we will be coming back for the parliamentary time to do that.