Monday 19th January 2026

(1 day, 12 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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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.

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Hamish Falconer Portrait Mr Falconer
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I am wounded that the comparison is a dubious one. On the question of time, I gently say to my predecessor—and I am glad to see the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), in his place—that there was rather a lot of time over the past 14 years to pass these things. We have done the Hall review and we are committed to implementing it.

Gareth Snell Portrait Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
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The brutal regime in Iran is well known to be attacking its own people at home, but it also poses one of the largest credible threats to Jewish people here in the UK. As the regime is currently blaming Israelis, Jews and Zionists for being responsible for the protests, will the Minister set out what discussions are happening across Government to ensure that the proxies and agents that we know are in the UK are being monitored, to make sure that the Jewish population of the UK do not feel a backlash as a result of the protests in Iran?

Hamish Falconer Portrait Mr Falconer
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I have said repeatedly and in no uncertain terms to our Iranian counterparts, as has the Foreign Secretary, that any threats in the UK to British people of any faith or denomination in any building and, indeed, any other diplomatic premises in the UK will be treated with the utmost seriousness. I have reiterated that strength of feeling to a range of representatives from the Jewish community in the UK, and I am happy to reiterate it again from the Dispatch Box.