Iran and the Middle East

Lord Polak Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I take that as a fair challenge. I am very well aware of the noble Lord’s views on this topic, and we have discussed them on many occasions—but the point that still stands as regards the United Kingdom’s position on this is that we must have clarity in international law, which we do for the actions that we are taking. However, we will also have to have a clear plan and a clear way forward.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister talks about the safety of British citizens, and I would like to talk about the safety of British citizens in Britain. As the House knows, 20 terrorist attacks from the Iranians have been stopped here—thank God—and the 21st is probably not very far away. We have all called for the IRGC to be proscribed, but the Government continue to hide behind some sort of legal processes. It has been done everywhere across Europe, and we are still slow—so can we do this? While we are thinking about that, we have the al-Quds march taking place next Saturday, which will be a march in support of the new ayatollah and the regime that the Minister does not like. What are we going to do to stop that?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I shall speak to my colleagues at the Home Office about the march. Obviously, how that is policed and what is done about it is rightly a matter for the relevant authorities. On the IRGC, I remind the House that we commissioned a legal report on this, and the recommendation was that the UK Government do not at present have the ability to sanction the IRGC in the way that we would want to, and we are committed to making the necessary changes to allow us to do just that.