UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago
Lord Goldsmith
That this House takes note of the Agreement between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Mauritius concerning the Chagos Archipelago including Diego Garcia.
Relevant document: 9th Report from the International Agreements Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)
Lord Goldsmith (Lab)
My Lords, the House has spoken about the underlying circumstances, but two points emerged from the debate which I very much appreciated. The first is how many topics we had to cover, including environmental area, security, law, history of the islands and so forth. We scrutinised that in a very short period—21 sitting days. I draw attention to the work done by the secretariat, and will name them, because they deserve it: Cathy Adams, Sophie Andrews-McCarroll and our clerk, Dr Rhiannon Williams. They worked so hard to produce this report, covering all these areas very comprehensively. For example, a question was raised about the provision in the annexe which says “expeditiously”. We looked at that and we got evidence on it—it is in the report. They deserve huge credit for that.
Secondly, it also demonstrates—and I respectfully suggest that today is not the day to resolve it—that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act really needs further looking at. This House and the other House have an enormous job to do in scrutinising treaties that the Executive enter into. The work that is involved in that is very important but very time-consuming, so we will come back to that question and invite this House, as well as the other place, to consider what changes ought to be made. With those remarks, I beg to move.