Iran

Priti Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Foreign, Development and Commonwealth Office if she will make a statement regarding the situation on Iran.

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

Iran’s horrific attacks on protesters have shocked the world. In recent days, the scale of the violence and brutality has become clearer. Reports suggest that many thousands of people across Iran have been killed, and many more arrested, in what has been a brutal and bloody repression against those exercising their right to public protest. There has been a range of estimates for casualties and detentions. However, the internet blackout imposed by the authorities, which we have also condemned and which has only recently started to relax, makes it impossible at the moment to reach a reliable figure. As one young Iranian woman chillingly told the BBC:

“We all know someone who was killed”.

What is clear from the reports is the scale of the killing, the brutality of the crackdown and the bravery of the protesters. As the Foreign Secretary has said, the Iranian people have shown extreme courage in the face of brutality and repression.

We condemn these horrific attacks on those exercising the right to peaceful protest in the strongest possible terms. This Government committed to the House that we would hold the Iranian authorities accountable, and that is exactly what we are doing. Yesterday, we announced a sweeping package of sanctions against the Iranian authorities for a number of serious human rights violations; this includes the designations of the Minister of the Interior, police chiefs and prolific Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members for their role in the recent brutality against protesters. We continue to work with our international partners to tackle the threat posed by Iran and to hold the Iranian regime to account by a range of means. Most recently, we led the call for a special session of the Human Rights Council on 23 January. We are pleased that the council has voted to extend the independent fact-finding mission to collect the evidence of the authorities’ human rights violations, and we will continue to support those efforts.

We continue to monitor developments closely and will not cease in our demands to Iran to protect fundamental freedoms, including access to information and communications. We are also continuing to take robust action to protect UK interests from Iranian state threats. Those threats are unacceptable. They must and will be defended against at every turn. We will continue to work with our allies and partners to improve regional stability and prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The UK will continue to challenge the actions of the Iranian regime and we stand proudly on the side of freedom and human rights.

[Priti Patel]

The brutal crackdown on brave Iranians fighting for their basic rights and freedoms continues. The reports are shocking. We have now seen that tens of thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands injured. Some are even saying that 30,000 people have died. These are warlike casualty rates, yet the condemnation and response are weak. What are the British Government doing, with our allies, to neutralise the regime’s tools of repression? The Government have announced new sanctions—the Minister has spoken about that—but what is being done to crack down on the sanctions evasion that is fuelling the Iranian regime’s repression, including in oil sales and cryptocurrency usage? What steps are being taken to weaken the regime’s terrorist proxies? Are the Government tracking the regime’s illegal funding sources to ensure that UK financial systems and institutions are not facilitating or hosting funds that are being used to target Iranian citizens in Britain with hostile attacks?

The EU has chosen to proscribe the IRGC. What is the Government’s response? The Jonathan Hall review concluded nearly nine months ago, so when will emergency and essential measures to take action against the IRGC come to Parliament? We cannot wait, and the Conservatives will support emergency legislation. The build-up of US naval and air force assets in the middle east has been well documented and reported, and it has prompted some reported contacts between the US and Iran. Will the Minister say what discussions have been held with the US Government about their intentions? Is the UK involved in any contacts between the US and Iran? What plans is the Minister making for British assets and the protection of personnel and British nationals in the region should the US decide to strike? Is there a scenario in which the UK might be involved in potential action? How will Ministers ensure that they are at the table, and what planning and co-operation are under way to assess any commercial disruption within the region should action materialise?

This is not the time to be silent. Britain must stand up for the Iranian people and confront this vile, despotic regime with strength and resolve.

[Mr Falconer]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her questions; I will respond to them in turn. We have taken a series of steps to ensure that anyone in this country wishing to support the Iranian Government must meet a much higher threshold to do so. We have introduced 550 sanctions, including some introduced by the last Government and some that we have built on. I will come to the sanctions we announced yesterday in due course.

Let me turn to the foreign influence registration scheme. We have now put Iran at the very top tier, which means additional reporting requirements for those who would seek to act here. That provides new options to our services and our police force should those seeking to act for Iran attempt to do so in the UK. This House has heard from me, and the right hon. Lady knows from her time as Home Secretary, about the extent of the threat that Iran poses to the UK. I reassure the House that we continue to treat that threat with the utmost seriousness that it requires, and we believe that the legislative steps we have taken on FIRS, the increase in sanctions and implementation of the Hall review will all further increase our defences against such action.

The right hon. Lady asks about discussions in recent days. We have been in regular discussion with all our regional partners. I am sure she will be aware of commentary over the last few days about further conversations between the Iranians and the United States. I do not wish from the Dispatch Box to get ahead of the direct participants but, as she would expect, we are in regular discussion with all those with an interest. As I said in my initial response to her urgent question, we want Iran to have no prospect of achieving a nuclear weapon. A diplomatic process to that effect is necessary, and we support all efforts by the United States and our other partners to assure that.

The right hon. Lady asks about our plans regarding assets and what scenarios may entail. She will appreciate why I will not be drawn into speculation in any great detail. These are clearly very delicate moments for Iran; as she rightly says, there has been very widespread loss of life on the streets of Iran. I will also take this opportunity to say that I know that for many British Iranians, there is great anguish about the lack of contact they have been able to have with their families in Iran. I feel that most acutely for British people still detained by the Iranian regime, but it is obviously an experience felt widely across the country. The British-Iranian community make an important contribution to this country, and I understand the anguish they feel over these recent days.