Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of taking legislative steps to help encourage Iran to improve the freedom of women and girls in that country.

We have not taken legal action regarding Iran's abhorrent repression of women and girls. However, we continue to stand with Iranian women and girls in their daily fight for equal rights. The UK was instrumental in delivering the Iran human rights resolution, adopted by the UN Third Committee in November 2024, which called on Iran to release women human rights defenders imprisoned for exercising their rights, and to take appropriate, robust and practical steps to protect women human rights defenders and guarantee their full enjoyment of all their human rights. We continue to support the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, which is essential for collecting and preserving evidence of serious human rights violations, including against women and girls. On the second anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2024, we issued a joint statement alongside international partners, emphasising our commitment to holding Iran accountable for its rights violations. Our Ambassador to Iran has raised women's rights directly with the Iranian government.