Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori on way to airport to leave Iran after release, MP says – live | Politics | #socialmedia

Reuters has also snapped this.

THIRD BRITISH-IRANIAN MORAD TAHBAZ FREED FROM IRAN JAIL ON FURLOUGH – IRNA

The IRNA is the Islamic Repubic News Agency.

Tahbaz, a British-American businessman born in Hammersmith, London, who also has Iranian citizenship. As my colleague Patrick Wintour writes, Tahbaz, a conservationist, was sentenced along with eight others to 10 years in jail in November 2019 for “contacts with the US enemy government”. The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has tweeted frequently in support of his innocence, an acknowledgement that he is a British consular case.

Boris Johnson has arrived in Saudi Arabia, the Press Association’s Sam Blewett reports.

In the Commons Raab was asked by the Labour MP Matt Western about Boris Johnson’s links to prominent Russians, and “what first attracted the prime minister” to billionaire oligarchs? In reply, Raab said Johnson was “a very social individual”.

Blackford says this case highlights wider problems with the government’s response to the refugee crisis.

Raab says the government is planning for the arrival of 100,000 Ukrainian children in the UK.

Back at PMQs Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says there are 48 orphans from Ukraine who have been offered sanctuary in Scotland. But the Home Office won’t clear the paperwork. Will Raab intervene?

Raab says the government wants to help. But this is not about bureaucracy. It is about safeguarding, he says.

Reuters has just issued this snap.

IRAN’S JUDICIARY CONFIRMS THE RELEASE OF BRITISH-IRANIAN NAZANIN ZAGHARI-RATCLIFFE AFTER YEARS OF DETENTION

Rayner says there is a fuel crisis. The government is not helping with the cost of living. It has neglected the security of the British people. And they partied during lockdown.

Raab describes the sanctions imposed on Russia, and accuses Rayner of just being in a “social media echo chamber”.

Rayner says the government has had 12 years to sort out the UK’s dependence on foreign oil. Yet now Boris Johnson is going cap in hand to a dictatorship.

Raab says, while Rayner was trying to make Jeremy Corbyn PM, Boris Johnson was coordinating an international response to the Russian chemical weapons attack in Salisbury.

Rayner asks if the PM ever asked the security services to revise their assessment of Evgeny Lebedev.

Raab says Rayner is talking nonsense. And he says she wanted Jeremy Corbyn to be PM, when he favoured pulling out of Nato and abandoning the nuclear deterrent.

Rayner says we have never been given details of the meeting between Boris Johnson and Evgeny Lebedev that took place two days after the security services advised that Lebedev should not get a peerage.

Raab says people get nominated for peerages for their contribution to society. He says many Russians contribute brilliantly to the country. Rayner should know better, he says.

Rayner asks Raab if, when he was foreign secretary, he overruled security service advice at any time. As foreign secretary he was in charge of MI6, she says.

Raab says this is nonsense. He says the House of Lords appointments commission has a vetting process. Raab says he never over-ruled the security services.

Angela Rayner asks for a review of the handling of the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case, and whether Boris Johnson’s comments about her as foreign secretary made the situation worse.

Raab says sole responsibility for what happened to Zaghari-Ratcliffe rests with Iran.

Dominic Raab starts by saying Boris Johnson is in the Gulf.

He also says four members of the Ukrainian parliament are watching proceedings from the gallery today.

PMQs is starting soon. With Boris Johnson in the Gulf, Dominic Raab, the deputy PM, will be standing in for him. Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, will be standing in for Keir Starmer.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

It is hard for most of us not to feel emotional about the news that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally being allowed home after six years, and it was certainly hard for Joanna Gosling, the BBC presenter, who could not conceal her feelings as she read out the news this morning. It is a sign of how Nazanin’s plight has gripped the nation.