Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Lord German Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I do not believe that it is shilly-shallying. As I said, it remains under active discussion among many departments in government.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I want to take the Minister’s view on what active consideration means. On 26 March, it was reported that Tom Tugendhat, the Minister, met campaigners for proscription and told them that there would be proscription—that the Government were going to proscribe—but that he could not give them a date upon which that proscription was going to take place. Has such a conversation taken place? Have the Government taken a decision but are not yet ready to tell us?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am familiar with the meeting referred to by the noble Lord. Mr Beheshti met the Security Minister on 29 March, following which Mr Beheshti uploaded a video recording of the meeting and stated, as the noble Lord has just outlined, that the Government are intending to do this. The formal read-out from the meeting confirmed that, unfortunately, Mr Beheshti had misinterpreted the content of the meeting.