Iran

Debate between Mark Francois and Hamish Falconer

Wednesday 15th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

That is a really important question. In my career as a diplomat, I saw the extent of disinformation and hostile efforts to influence others change incredibly quickly. Iran has been described in this debate as not doing normal diplomacy. It is not just Iran. The right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) mentioned the obvious efforts of Moscow to have influence in a whole range of ways, whether through the Wagner Group—now the Africa Corps—or online. I am afraid to have to inform my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer), if he is not already aware of it, that quite a lot of the state-backed Russian media spend quite a lot of time talking about just how awful we all are in this House.

This is a really important area of work. The Security Minister leads the defending democracy taskforce, which is driven from the centre of Government—of course, we in the Foreign Office have an important role to play, but so do many other arms of Government. There is no lack of urgency on the part of Government in dealing with this problem. It is, of course, difficult to delineate between disinformation and disagreement, but you know it when you see it, and many of us in this House with experience of foreign affairs have seen just how dramatically it has risen as an issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) rightly referred to the noticeable drop in commentary on the merits of Scottish independence following the interventions—I do not wish to disagree with friends in the Chamber on the merits of that case, though as the House might expect, I am an ardent Unionist, with an English mother and a Scottish father.

Madam Deputy Speaker, with your permission, I will make a little progress and turn to what is happening in Iran, lest I leave Conservative Members complaining that I have taken the full two hours. I do not like to do this, but let me gently correct the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold—I am afraid that there are missiles flying, and they are flying towards our friends. I condemn in the strongest terms the reckless attacks on commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz and, indeed, on countries in the region. These include Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Jordan. The Conservative defence spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), asked what support we have given to those countries. We still have British fighter jets in the air seeking to defend our friends and partners, we have the Sky Sabre programme, and we have forward-deployed a range of support from the RAF. I join the right hon. Member in thanking both our armed forces and their families—I think he referred to the home base. For much of the Royal Air Force, the home base is Lincoln, and I am particularly grateful to the families there.

We have called out what is intolerable aggression from Iran—not just by ourselves, and not just with our counterparts in the region, but with friends elsewhere, including France and Germany. The House should be clear about what Iran has done over the past week; it is seeking not only to strike our friends and partners, but to assert control over what are very clearly Oman’s territorial waters. It has been explicit that one of the things it is most offended by is the passage of ships through what is sometimes called the southern channel of the strait of Hormuz. That is practically the beaches of Oman. Oman is a long-standing friend and ally of this country; it has full rights to its own territory and its own waters, and what Iran is seeking to do is a terrible threat to a principle that this House has valued for a very long time, which is the freedom of navigation. We want to see no tolls and no restrictions, and we want a return to diplomacy. We want the memorandum of understanding to be clearly in force, implemented in good faith, verifiable and in line with international law.

Our priorities remain de-escalation, the protection of civilian shipping and the full reopening of the strait. However, as many hon. and right hon. Members have said, Iran also must never have a nuclear weapon, and we continue to engage closely with our partners in the region and, indeed, to be clear with Iran itself about that. For understandable reasons, we have talked a great deal about the strait, but let me set out the clear and verifiable steps that we expect of Iran in relation to the nuclear issue. We must now have full co-operation with the IAEA, and it must have full access to all nuclear sites in Iran.

To return to the strait of Hormuz, as many hon. and right hon. Members have said, what happens there affects all of our constituents. I unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks on commercial shipping, which have cost innocent seafarers their lives, damaged the environment and left global trade unable to flow freely. Many of those strikes have been in Omani waters; the MOU between the US and Iran in no way abrogated Oman’s rights to its own territorial sea, and we stand with Oman.

As a result of Iran’s reckless actions, particularly over the past few days, we have now seen daily transits decline from around 150 vessels a day before the conflict to just a handful yesterday. No country has the right to hijack international shipping or to hold the global economy hostage. This crisis will be felt by some of the world’s most vulnerable people, who will bear its brunt most extremely. Iran must halt these attacks on international shipping, and it must support the reopening of the strait and a return to de-escalation and diplomacy, as envisaged in the memorandum of understanding that it signed.

The UK will continue to stand for freedom of navigation, both in the strait and across the world. Our priority in the strait negotiation is to ensure unimpeded passage without the threat of violence, tolls, fees or conditions. We will continue to stand up for international law, as reflected in the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, for freedom of navigation, for global navigation rights, and for seafarer safety. We will continue, alongside France, to lead efforts to reassure international shipping. That is why we have established the multinational military mission—the MMM—to support de-mining, to reassure shipping and to help reopen the strait. Some 28 countries have now pledged their support for these efforts.

The Foreign Secretary convened a meeting of more than 40 countries, as well as the International Maritime Organisation and the EU, to build consensus and determination across the international community to secure freedom of navigation and reopen the strait. We welcome the IMO’s evacuation corridor initiative and its mandate to restore safe and unhindered transit through the strait. The IMO must be enabled to resume that work as soon as possible.

[Mr Francois]

Without asking the Minister to reveal any operationally sensitive information, for reasons that we all understand, is the Government’s position that they will not seek to use the capability of the international coalition for de-mining to clear mines from the strait unless, in effect, they have Iranian consent for de-mining?

[Mr Falconer]

We have to be extremely clear about the circumstances of the strait. It is clear that Oman has the right to do what it wishes within its own waters, consistent with international law. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will have seen the statement from France and Britain recently about our intent to support the Omanis in de-mining, if that is what they want. We have been clear that the MMM is intended to be a defensive effort. It is not committing the UK into the wider conflict between the US and Iran; it is a defensive measure. We do not require the consent of Iran to be in Omani or international waters. That is an important principle that this House has upheld for many decades—perhaps even centuries—and we will continue to do so.

I will turn from the strait to what happens here at home. Important points were made in the debate about the role of Persian language media organisations and their associated journalists. I am afraid that it is true that the Iranian intelligence service has a long-standing pattern of targeting Jewish and Israeli people, and there appear to have been efforts to target journalists, too. We are firm in our commitment to protect the Jewish community, and we will continue to work urgently to stamp out vile antisemitism. As foreign states increasingly seek to promote threats on our streets, we are taking concrete measures to crack down on those who try to undermine our country and its security.

Consular Assistance

Debate between Mark Francois and Hamish Falconer

Thursday 5th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Where is Yvette?

[Mr Falconer]

I would be grateful if Members on the Opposition Front Bench could keep their volume slightly down.

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: Travel Advice

Debate between Mark Francois and Hamish Falconer

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing the debate. I send my condolences to Cathy and to the whole family for the tragic loss of Hudson in Ecuador. I know how difficult it must be, and my thoughts are with them. I am grateful, too, for the contributions of other hon. Members, and I shall try to respond to the points that have been made. I know that some of those contributions are informed by personal and painful experience.

I am the Minister with consular responsibilities for British nationals overseas, so I hope hon. Members will forgive me if my speech focuses on the overseas elements of the debate. We have taken careful note of the points made for other Departments, including the Northern Ireland Office, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. My officials will seek answers for hon. Members on the more detailed questions that I am unable to answer today.

Supporting British nationals abroad is clearly a key priority for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Most British people live or travel abroad without incident or needing to seek consular assistance. When an incident does occur, they naturally and understandably ask whether it was preventable. If it was not, what might have made it more bearable?

Let me say a few words on how the Government are acting to help British nationals in need abroad. I will begin by setting out our approach to travel advice, the goal of which is to help British nationals to make better informed decisions about international travel. Their safety is always our top priority, and our advice is based on objective assessments of the risks, based on inputs from multiple sources. That includes our own embassies, foreign Governments, and, where relevant, intelligence services.

On carbon monoxide poisoning specifically, as the House will be aware, building, fire and gas safety standards abroad do not always match those in the UK, as the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) identified. Since the Foreign Office lacks in-house expertise on building safety, we share information from expert organisations, such as Energy UK, in some of our travel advice. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, for some countries, such as China and Nepal, where carbon monoxide poisoning is a higher risk, we include specific information on that in our travel advice, based on local reports and consular case trends.

I recognise the questions asked by the hon. Member for Romford about trends; it is difficult to determine those on the basis of the information available to the Foreign Office. Last year, sadly, 4,000 British nationals lost their lives overseas, and we believe that at least two of those were as a consequence of carbon monoxide poisoning. However, as many hon. Members have identified, we cannot be sure of what we do not know. Wherever cases are raised, as with the tragic case raised by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, my officials and I are available. If there is uncertainty about the cause of death and further support is required from the Foreign Office, we stand available to provide that. But as I think the hon. Member identified, ultimately, our advice is there to guide people, not to set rules that people must abide by. It is intended as just one source of information to help British people to make informed decisions about where and how they travel.

I acknowledge what the hon. Member for Surrey Heath said about the impact of our advice. I assure the House that we always consider the arguments for changes to travel advice on their merits. We must make judgments, try to consider all risks proportionately, and consider the best way to ensure that advice is presented to travellers.

[Mr Francois]

On the point about the extent of guidance, with my recent gas bill, I got a leaflet from British Gas—which I take to be authoritative—warning about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning. It estimated that about 50 people had died from it in the UK in the previous year. That is slightly higher than but similar to the APPG’s estimate. British Gas is warning people here in the UK. Given what has happened, it would not be a great deal of skin off the Minister’s nose if we were able to say that the Government will make including that a standard part of travel advice for Brits going abroad. Can I invite him, with the family here, to do the right thing?

[Mr Falconer]

I think the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal is that we include the risks from carbon monoxide everywhere in the world. I am happy to take away that proposal and to come back with a more detailed answer, particularly in relation to the letter from the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, in which he set out some further requests of the Foreign Office, as he did in his speech. With travel advice, we always balance the desire not to have too much standard text across all countries with the wish to keep it as focused as possible, but I am happy to take away that question and return to it.

Alongside travel advice, of course, the Government aim to reduce incidents through our long-standing Travel Aware campaign, which includes key messages such as encouraging British nationals to have appropriate travel insurance, to read our travel advice and to sign up for our alerts. We partner with more than 100 organisations from across the travel industry, including airlines, tour operators and insurance providers, and we ask them to help to amplify our key messages and drive customers to our travel advice pages.

We try to regularly review our work with partners to ensure that they highlight appropriate issues to British travellers. That has included work with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Safer Tourism Foundation, which I think the hon. Member for Surrey Heath has mentioned already, to raise awareness specifically on the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning around the world. I commit that my officials will hold another meeting with the Safer Tourism Foundation later this month to explore opportunities for greater collaboration.

Turning now to our work on prevention, we use a range of sources—customer feedback, casework data and in-house research—to determine when to take preventive action. We also work closely with host authorities, partners in the travel industry and others to improve local support for British people abroad. Through our student brand ambassador programme, we aim to raise awareness among young people of preventable incidents.

Let me assure the House that the Government are committed to continual improvement. We are looking for ways to improve our consular services, including our prevention activity, messaging and travel advice. Priority themes are constantly under review, with decisions being made according to what poses the greatest risk to British travellers abroad. We will also explore options for linking to other expert sources through our travel advice pages for solo and independent travellers. That includes advice such as that shared by the Safer Tourism Foundation on carbon monoxide safety.

I admire the efforts of the Foley family to urge travellers to take safety equipment such as carbon monoxide detectors on their travels. We will consider including that in our advice, and it is of course important that travellers use them in accordance with manufacturers’ instructions and that they should be maintained and tested regularly.

I emphasise that we welcome all feedback and use it to improve our services. I recognise the strength of feeling from the House and from the hon. Member for Surrey Heath. We will consider his proposals carefully, and I am happy to meet with colleagues again to follow up on these important issues. In the spirit of the speech from the hon. Member for Romford, we intend to work on this on a cross-party basis. I reiterate the Foreign Office’s commitment to providing clear, accessible and up-to-date travel advice. We will keep it under constant review and ensure it reflects the latest assessments. We will continue to collaborate with the travel industry to amplify personal safety messages, and we will work with host Governments to reduce the risks for British people abroad.