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Strait of Hormuz: Merchant Shipping

The noble Baroness makes an important point. We continue to speak to the Americans and discuss with them how we can see an operational and functioning ceasefire restored. The memorandum of understanding worked for a time and we saw an increase in the number of ships using the Strait of Hormuz. From memory, I think that, before the conflict, some 130 ships were using the strait per day; after the memorandum of understanding was signed and was seen to be operating for a number of days, between 20 and 30 ships were using it. That has reduced for obvious

reasons—yesterday, there was one ship. Getting a situation in place which has the confidence of all the nations that use the Strait of Hormuz, as a functioning arrangement between Iran and the United States, is clearly in all our interests. We have certainly talked to the Americans about how we might support them in the re-establishment of that.