Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Report stage
Monday 5th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Report

Relevant documents: 2nd Report from the International Relations and Defence Committee, 37th and 43rd Reports from the Delegated Powers Committee, 14th Report from the Constitution Committee

15:21

Clause 1: Commencement of Treaty and main provisions of this Act

Amendment 1

Moved by

[Lord Craig of Radley]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert
“, subject to subsection (2A).
(2A) Sections 2 to 4 of this Act come into force only when the Secretary of State has sought to negotiate an amendment to Article 11 of the Treaty to ensure that the United Kingdom would cease to make payments to the government of Mauritius in the event that the use of the Base for military purposes became impossible.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that, before the ratification of the Treaty, His Majesty's Government makes arrangements for the terms of payment should environmental or other issues make the military use of the Base permanently impossible.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, happy new year to everyone. I will speak to Amendments 1 and 38. In an earlier debate on the Bill, I raised the concern that the UK is required, under Article 11 of the treaty, to continue to pay Mauritius even were the military base on Diego Garcia to become unusable. There seems to be no break or conditional clause agreeing any reasons why the UK may cease these payments before the 99-year date is reached.

Article 15 sets out how Mauritius may react should the UK cease payment, but this is a reason why Mauritius may terminate the treaty, not the UK. If the UK were to persist in not honouring its obligation to pay, the treaty would perforce be terminated by Mauritius. For the avoidance of doubt, would that mean that Article 1 of the treaty is still applicable and sovereignty would remain with Mauritius? Can the Minister confirm the Government’s view on this? I have forewarned her of this question.

In Committee on 18 November, the Minister said in response to my question about the base no longer being usable:

“I will reflect on this and try to come back to him with a more thorough response, because I can see that he … wants to know that the Government have given this the proper consideration that he would expect. I undertake to do that”.—[Official Report, 18/11/25; col. 772.]

If she has written with this further information, I have not yet received it. Fundamentally, does she feel that the environmental risks and the risks of other possible events, such as a major destructive attack on the base or even a decision by the United States that it has no further use for it, are sufficiently remote and unlikely for the UK to be able to accept—or have a possibly messy and even dishonourable termination, where considerable sums of taxpayers’ money may be involved?

As this is Report, I do not intend to do more than point this out without detail, but experience tells us that much can and does change over time. In well under the past 100 years, foes have become friends and friends, potential and real, have become foes. Weapon technology may well change and has frequently done so, as has how operations are mounted and security maintained. America could decide that it has no need for the base for operational reasons or even cease to act as a world police force and revert to isolationism. Is there any legally binding agreement between the UK and the United States that it will continue its use of the base or have need of its use for the 99-year duration of the treaty?

I do not wish to suggest any lack of importance of the base to national and international security at the present time. There is also the putative threat of the sea rising this century due to global warming, flooding the base. My Amendment 1 suggests one feasible way to correct this apparent lack of foresight. I shall listen with close interest to the Minister’s response, but unless the Government can reassure the House that the issue of non-usability of the base has been fully considered and a reasonable solution adopted, I may seek the views of the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 1, to which I attach my name, and to reinforce the arguments made by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig of Radley. This amendment is not moved by any wider purpose than common sense, and we trust that the Government will respond accordingly.

Currently, the Bill makes no provision for the circumstances under which the requirement to pay an annual fee for the use of the Diego Garcia base is revisited in the event of the base becoming unusable for military purposes. My noble and gallant friend has already mentioned the potential risks to the utility of the base arising from an extreme environmental event, the future potential for a policy change by the United States and the potential for the technical obsolescence of the base to come about. I argue that concerns regarding potential legal initiatives to constrain the use of the base, particularly partial constraints deriving from nuclear exclusion agreements or the question of Mauritius as the sovereign power having to honour obligations for the authorisation of offensive operations from the base, should be added to that list of concerns.

I fear that the greatest future concern should perhaps be the full or partial destruction of the base through military action by a hostile state. This might seem a surprising concern given the extremely remote nature of this base, but I have been to it. I argue quite strongly that the strategic importance of the base, its entirely militaristic purpose and its extreme remoteness from civilian life all combine to make it a highly vulnerable and attractive target.

The principal tenets for the use of force in warfare are distinction, military necessity, humanity and proportionality. Pause for a moment to imagine the early stages of a global conflict, when a desire for escalation dominance prompts a hostile nation to destroy a western strategic asset as a proportionate response, with no risk of collateral damage to a civilian population, attracting relatively minor moral opprobrium but resulting in huge military benefit. I cannot think of an obviously better or more considered target than Diego Garcia.

Many in the Chamber may think my concerns are drawn from the world of fantasy or nightmare, but do the last 72 hours not give serious cause for concern regarding our ability to predict with certainty the next two years of geopolitics, let alone the next 100? This treaty needs to cater far better for what the future might hold.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I add my voice to those of the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Craig of Radley and Lord Houghton of Richmond. It seems to me that this is precisely the kind of question that ought to have been looked at in detail. The more we have sat here and gone through clause by clause, the more it seems that these issues were avoided in the negotiations. I wonder whether the Minister has read the report in today’s Times newspaper about where the impetus for this treaty had come from. It quotes a senior figure involved in the administration of the BIOT as saying that it was

“championed by a small number of civil servants”

and that

“in multiple conversations with military and BIOT administration staff it is clear that there is no one who supports this treaty”.

Maybe if we had had those conversations with the people on the ground, military and civil, issues of the kind raised by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, would have been anticipated, but if they were not, is not the fundamental purpose of this Chamber to address them at this stage? For that reason, should we not be backing the points made by the noble and gallant Lords?

15:30

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I gave very careful consideration to the points raised in these amendments by both noble and gallant Lords. They raise significant issues, which I am very sympathetic to. I am also very keen to hear the Minister’s response, given her commitment in Committee, especially in relation to the consequences of Article 1 of the treaty, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, has indicated.

There are, however, elements of the amendments which I am perhaps not entirely persuaded by. They are the conditions within the bailiwick of the Mauritian Government that could give rise to the circumstances where we would seek to stop payments. They are not covered by this amendment, per se. They would, however, be covered in subsection (4) of the proposed new clause in my Amendment 50, which will be discussed much later during our considerations today and which would create the conditions where, if the Mauritian Government by their actions were putting at risk the consequences of our payments, Parliament would be able to pause the payments.

If there are reasons unspecified by Amendment 1 which are non-defence related, there is the potential for UK funding for resettlement support, the trust fund operations or Chagossian community-specific support to be put at risk, so it is worth while to separate out the defence interests from the other elements of the treaties. As the mechanisms in Amendment 50 are preferable in our view, we would find it difficult to support these amendments.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, Amendment 26 standing in my name states that:

“Sections 2 to 4 come into force only when the Secretary of State has assessed … the impact of the termination of all rights granted by the Treaty to the United Kingdom with respect to the entire Chagos Archipelago through Article 15 of the Treaty”


and

“the impact of the arrangements in Article 15 on the leverage opportunities at the Secretary of State’s disposal in negotiating with Mauritius after ratification”.

Article 15(1)(a) of the Mauritius treaty states that Mauritius can terminate the Mauritius Treaty in the event of

“a failure by the United Kingdom to make payment as required by Article 11”.

This means that if a payment is more than 22 days late, the entire Mauritius treaty is terminated, subject of course to the fact that sovereignty over the Chagos Islands will be in the hands of Mauritius. In that event, we would lose absolutely everything, and if the United States wanted to keep its Diego Garcia base, it would probably have to do so by force. While the United Kingdom could no doubt seek to achieve this, China, Russia and other countries could protest very loudly and have international law on their side. It would provide an excuse for any other power to try to take Diego Garcia and could lead to a major war.

Of course, the Government can respond by saying that this will not happen if we pay on time—and, no doubt, they will assure that we will pay. While we are protected from this eventuality by dutifully paying up completely and always on time, Article 15(1)(a) places the United Kingdom, and by extension the United States, in a formally intolerable, weak position.

To understand the problems arising from the very weak footing on which the treaty places us when negotiating with Mauritius, we must appreciate the huge concerns about what happens in relation to the Chagos Islands beyond Diego Garcia. Mauritius has a clear incentive, arising from the income stream we have promised, to seek additional income streams for leasing other islands or parts of islands. The Government have sought to make much of the fact that we have a veto on the deployment of security and defence forces beyond Diego Garcia, but the problem is that the real threats do not announce themselves as deployment of security and defence forces and are much more subtle. Something that begins as a non-security and defence deployment, in relation to which we have no veto, can evolve into something very different—an emergent risk, over which the treaty affords us no right of veto but only a right to object. The right to object can be resolved only on a consensual basis within the joint committee between the UK and Mauritius proposed by the Mauritius treaty and could no doubt take a long time if Mauritius wanted it to. It is here that our complete lack of leverage provided by paragraph 1(a) of Article 15 is a particular cause for concern.

Mauritius could generally adopt a very unco-operative approach on the joint committee, knowing that, if it resists one of our concerns and we counter by threatening to withhold payment, subject to satisfactory resolution, that will serve simply to renounce all our remaining rights in relation to the Chagos Islands, giving them completely to Mauritius. Of course, if ever a deployment of non-security and defence personnel from another country becomes an emergent risk, and one wherein those concerned in effect become security and defence personnel, the UK would have a right of veto. However, the difficulty is that, by that stage, they will be established in place, and if they did not want to leave, they could be removed only by force, threatening war and international instability.

If we look at other categories of emergent risk, in relation to which we have powers only to lodge objections on the joint committee, we are further confronted by the way in which the terms of the Mauritius treaty—especially paragraph 1(a) of Article 15—rob us of leverage. These risks would all be avoided if the UK did the right thing and corrected the historic wrong of the forced removal of the Chagossians from their islands and afforded them self-determination. While it is plain that not all would vote to be a separate jurisdiction from Mauritius—in the same way that not everyone on the Ellice Islands voted to become a separate jurisdiction from the Gilbert Islands—polling suggests that a majority would vote to become a resettled, largely self-governing British Overseas Territory, legitimately under British sovereignty. In that event, none of the above difficulties would arise.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, as we begin our proceedings on Report, let me reiterate our view, as the Official Opposition, that the treaty that the Government have agreed with Mauritius puts the interests of the British people last. It is an abject surrender that we would never have agreed to. It was mentioned nowhere in the Government’s election manifesto, and it stands in stark contrast to their manifesto commitment to protect the British Overseas Territories. The British people were not consulted on the treaty, yet it will see over £34 billion-worth of taxpayers’ money paid to the Government of Mauritius over the treaty’s lifetime. That is a political decision by this Government at a time when taxes to the British public are being hiked to an all-time high.

In stark contrast, the Mauritian Prime Minister said that the money from the Chagos deal will fund debt repayments and tax cuts as part of a budget package that will see 80% of Mauritian workers exempted completely from income tax.

However, it is, of course, not just the British people who have not been consulted but the Chagossians themselves, who have suffered so much over many years and have not had their voice heard in this process either.

I am pleased to say that the Government have rightly shared some more details about the Chagossian Contact Group they have set up, but it should not have taken forceful pressure from the Opposition to deliver that transparency. Even with those details, the Chagossian people have not been formally consulted by the British Government on this treaty. We have only to look at the recent report from the International Relations and Defence Committee on the opinion of Chagossians to know exactly what they think of this treaty.

In the other place, we opposed the Bill at Third Reading, and we still oppose it. But, of course, now that we are on Report, we will work constructively with noble Lords across the House to seek to improve the Bill today.

My Amendment 6 would require the Secretary of State to seek to negotiate a right to extend the length of the treaty beyond 99 years before it can be ratified. When we suggested this in Committee, the Minister explained that Article 13 of the treaty establishes the process by which the treaty would be extended up to a limit of 40 years. One of the problems with that process is that it would require a renegotiation, possibly including additional payments, leaving the British taxpayer exposed to potentially even higher bills at the end of this period.

Ministers tell us that the UK will have the right of first refusal of the terms offered to any third party for the use of Diego Garcia following the expiry or termination of the treaty, but how can the UK ensure that those terms are reasonable? We therefore seek clarity from the Government on what happens at the end of this 99-year period. I hope that this time, the Minister will be able to provide us with more information on the Government’s exact understanding of the workability of Article 13 of the treaty.

My Amendment 40 would require the Government to clarify their understanding of the status of the Chagos Islands should the treaty be terminated. In Committee, the Minister emphasised that the circumstances in which Mauritius can unilaterally terminate the treaty are extremely limited, and we accept that. She also told the Committee that it is

“highly unrealistic that Mauritius would agree to a reversion to British sovereignty in the event of termination”.—[Official Report, 18/11/25; col. 781.]

That leaves open the question of who might agree to a transfer of sovereignty with the Government of Mauritius. In a circumstance where Mauritius is sovereign and the treaty is no longer in effect, is there a risk that the Mauritian Government may choose to transfer sovereignty to a third party? What guarantees have the Government sought from Mauritius on this? Again, I hope the Minister will be able to provide us with some more detail on those points at this stage in our legislative process.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, for his excellent amendment in this group. He is right to continue to press the Government on this point, and we share his concerns about the position should the treaty be terminated. I look forward to hearing the replies from the Minister on these points.

Finally, I turn to the amendments in the name of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, which is supported by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton of Richmond—two well-respected Members of the House. It is unconscionable that British taxpayers should be forced to continue to fund the Mauritian Government under the terms of the treaty in circumstances where the military base, which the treaty relates to and secures, has therefore become inoperable. Therefore, we firmly support this amendment and, should the noble and gallant Lord wish to test the opinion of the House, we on these Benches would support him in that.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, one criterion which the House may like to have in mind as we consider the amendments before us is whether they would prevent the Government ratifying the treaty. We have to pass the Bill before the treaty can be ratified, and some of these amendments would ensure that ratification could not take place until there had been some renegotiation or a new negotiation.

The House decided, at the end of June, that it wanted to ratify the treaty. The House voted for ratification; the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, argued that it should not do so, but it chose to follow the advice of its International Agreements Committee and voted for the ratification of the treaty. Consistent with the view we have held up to now, I believe that, today, we should not pass any amendments that would require renegotiation.

15:45

I believe that for a number of reasons. One is that we would make ourselves an international laughing stock. Having spent all these years negotiating this treaty—and having secured the strong support of the United States Administration, as well as that of our friends in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India, for this treaty—it would be very peculiar if we decided that, on second thought, we wanted not to ratify this treaty but to restart negotiation with Mauritius. I do not know how our American friends would react. They can, as recent history shows, be impulsive. It is conceivable that they might think that the best way of securing the use of the base in Diego Garcia would be to switch sides and to decide that a deal between the United States and Mauritius would be better for the long-term security of the United States than the deal that the British have negotiated with Mauritius. That is possible; it is not a risk I would wish to run. We would make ourselves look very strange if we refused to ratify the treaty.

Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, would require us to renegotiate the treaty and insert a provision that it could be extended, after 99 years, only on the same terms as it now exists or on terms that would be more favourable to the British. I do not know much about Mauritius but I would have thought that no Government in any country could agree that a treaty could be changed only on terms that would be less advantageous to them. It seems to me that an absurd proposition is being put forward here.

In general, my point applies, I hope, to a whole lot of amendments for which I would have much more sympathy—such as the amendment in the name of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig. He makes a valid point, but his amendment says that that point would have to be explored with the Mauritius Government before the treaty could be ratified. Therefore, I am afraid, I cannot support it.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I wish briefly to speak to Amendment 40 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. I am struck by the fact that, in all his interventions so far in these debates—at Second Reading, in Committee and, now, on Report—he has never referred at all to the report of the International Agreements Committee on this treaty. He also seems not to have registered, let alone to respect, the vote that was taken at the end of the debate on 30 June.

The point I am making is that, were the noble Lord to go back to the documents and the evidence that was tabled at the time when the International Agreements Committee’s report was laid before this House, he would find there the testimony of Sir Christopher Greenwood. It is remarkably convincing and answers the question posed by the noble Lord in his Amendment 40; it describes what Sir Christopher thinks would happen in circumstances where Mauritius returned to a route that involved international litigation.

It is all set out there. He is an extremely distinguished British national judge of the International Court of Justice. It has nothing to do with the advisory opinion. It is to do with his views about the situation that would then exist. He believes that Mauritius would not have too much difficulty in convincing any international court to which it took litigation that the Chagos Islands were transferred at the time of Mauritian independence.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, for not writing to him, but I hope that I can answer his concerns this afternoon.

Amendments 1 and 38, tabled by the noble and gallant Lord, relate to the termination of the treaty based on environmental degradation of Diego Garcia island. As I am sure that he will appreciate, given the importance of the base to both UK and US national security, we and the US are working hard to ensure that the base is protected from environmental damage. We have a programme to address coastal erosion and, while we cannot predict future erosion, specific studies have concluded that the overall land area of parts of the island that are not shaped by military construction decreased by less than a single percentage point over the last 50 years. However, I know that this is not really his point. He is using climate change and rising sea levels, but equally a significant pollution event, a meteor strike or something else could happen, so have the Government considered what they would do in an unpredicted and unpredictable situation that may arise and render the base unusable? That is the kernel of what he is getting at.

For obvious reasons, we do not want to get into a debate about other future hypothetical scenarios, whether they relate to the base becoming unusable or its no longer being needed. It is difficult to see that happening. The US, which has invested heavily in Diego Garcia, agrees that opening up the possibility of the agreement with Mauritius being terminated early is not helpful. However, I take the noble and gallant Lord’s point that, when dealing with a treaty over such a long period, we must at least be aware of the possibility that things can change. That is why we have included in the treaty the joint commission as a mechanism for agreeing between the UK, the US and Mauritius any developments relating to the base that we wish to raise. Should any of the hypothetical scenarios that I have referred to transpire, these are the sorts of issues that could be discussed in the joint commission, with decisions taken based on all the circumstances at the time. We have also included provision in the treaty for the matter to be raised up to prime ministerial level if necessary.

Using these mechanisms the UK and Mauritius would, in close consultation with the United States, agree a way forward. Ultimately, there is provision in the treaty for it to be terminated on two grounds, both of which depend on action by the UK. One is our failure to make payments. As noble Lords know, the UK abides by its international obligations, but in any particular case the Government of the day would need to consider their options in light of all the circumstances, looking at the terms of the treaty as well as wider international law. It is this wider international law, which we have not discussed previously, that I encourage the noble and gallant Lord to consider. He may wish to bear in mind that the international law of treaties permits the termination of a treaty when it becomes impossible for the treaty to be performed as a result of

“the permanent disappearance or destruction of an object indispensable for the execution of the treaty”.

That is wider international law; that is not something that is held within this treaty itself. That is helpful and I hope it reassures him about his concerns.

I hope that the noble and gallant Lord can see that we are taking steps that are necessary to prevent the base becoming unusable and that, however hard hypothetical situations might be for us to imagine today, there are processes in place established by the treaty to resolve them. Using these processes, based on the circumstances of the time, no doubt any future UK Government would do what was in the best interests of the UK.

In the same vein, Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, discusses the ability to extend the agreement at the end of its initial 99 years. I assure him that there is already provision for the treaty to be extended by 40 years and beyond with the agreement of both parties. Even if agreement is not reached, the UK has the right of first refusal during that first 40 years after the initial period expires, meaning that no other country can use Diego Garcia without the UK being offered use first. I cannot accept his amendment as it seeks to change a carefully negotiated aspect of the treaty.

Similarly, I cannot accept Amendment 40, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, which calls on the Secretary of State to publish a statement of the Government’s understanding of the legal status of the Chagos Archipelago should the agreement be terminated. The noble Lord is aware that the UK honours its international obligations and is committed to the treaty. The grounds for terminating the treaty are incredibly limited, as I have said, and entirely depend on the UK’s actions.

I thought it might be helpful to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, in particular, to outline a little more detail about from the law of treaties, which I am relying on in my attempts to persuade him this afternoon. Article 61 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which the UK and Mauritius are both parties to, provides that:

“A party may invoke the impossibility of performing a treaty as a ground for terminating or withdrawing from it if the impossibility results from the permanent disappearance or destruction of an object indispensable for the execution of the treaty. If the impossibility is temporary, it may be invoked only as a ground for suspending the operation of the treaty.


Impossibility of performance may not be invoked by a party as a ground for terminating, withdrawing from or suspending the operation of a treaty if the impossibility is the result of a breach by that party either of an obligation under the treaty or of any other international obligation owed to any other party to the treaty”.


That covers the situation that he refers to—sea level rise—but would also cover many of the other situations that, at this stage, we are able to envisage occurring in the future.

I hope that noble Lords feel able to not press their amendments.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness very much for the way in which she has attempted to deal with my and our concerns. She has certainly pointed to an alternative way, but I still feel that this is something which should and could be sorted out before we get into formal ratification, and therefore I would like to test the opinion of the House.

15:58

Division 1

Amendment 1 agreed.

Ayes: 132

Noes: 124

16:10

Amendment 2

Moved by

[Lord Callanan]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert
“, subject to subsection (2A).
(2A) Section 4 comes into force only when the Secretary of State has undertaken a consultation of the Chagossian community and laid a report of that consultation before both Houses of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent the provisions of this Bill relating to citizenship from coming into force unless the Secretary of State has undertaken a consultation of the Chagossian community.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, throughout our debates on the Bill, we have heard time and again from noble Lords across your Lordships’ House that the Chagossian people have not been properly consulted by the Government. That is a view with which I heartily agree. They should be formally consulted on the whole treaty and I will come to that point when we address the amendments relating to a referendum of the Chagossian people. However, my Amendment 2 sets out an absolute bare minimum of consultation that the Government should surely undertake.

The Bill changes Chagossian citizens’ rights. That is a fundamental change in their lives and will result in profound changes to their rights. Can the Minister set out what consultation the Government intend to undertake before the provisions relating to Chagossian citizenship rights come into effect? Can she also confirm whether these provisions have been discussed with the Chagossian contact group? What concerns, if any, were raised by its members?

Many Chagossians want to return to their homeland. I tabled Amendment 4 to give the Government the opportunity to go further than the treaty and take positive steps to ensure that Chagossians will be able to return to their homeland should they wish to.

My Amendment 5 relates to illegal migration and asylum seekers. In Committee, the Minister helpfully clarified that Mauritius will be responsible for any illegal migrants who arrive at Diego Garcia. But the terms of Annex 2 of the treaty qualify the exercise of jurisdiction by Mauritius in respect of illegal migration by stating that this applies only

“provided such exercise of jurisdiction is in conformity with the requirements of this Agreement”.

Can the Minister therefore explain the Government’s understanding of that qualification? Can she categorically rule out the possibility that the UK might be responsible for any illegal migrants or asylum seekers arriving at the Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia?

As noble Lords will be aware, on 8 December 2025, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination released a report that expressed deep concern about the UK’s treaty with Mauritius. I hope that the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Hannay, have taken the time to read that report, as they are so keen to know what the UN thinks.

We are told that the Government’s motivation for agreeing the treaty is to address the advisory judgments of international courts. Therefore, can the Minister set out how the UK Government intend to respond to the UN committee? What steps will Ministers take to address its concerns and implement its conclusions? Can the Minister give the House an assurance that the Government are satisfied that the treaty they have agreed with the Mauritian Government will prevent further legal uncertainty in future? They have spent all their time telling us that the reason for the treaty is to resolve any legal concerns, yet additional ones have now been raised by the UN about this very agreement.

I turn now to my Amendments 45 and 46, in respect of the Chagossian trust fund board. I am delighted that the Government have now come forward with further detail on how the board will operate. Greater transparency about the operation of the trust fund was one of the key requests that we made of the Government last year and we are pleased to have been able to secure greater transparency for the Chagossians. In particular, the confirmation that Chagossians will have fair representation on the board is crucial. It is vital that board members champion the rights and interests of Chagossian people. Can the Minister confirm that the Chagossians on the board will not be linked, either through employment or other means, to the Mauritian Government? Can she also confirm that the fund will be open to all Chagossians, including those who are not Mauritian citizens but wish to be Mauritian citizens, and who are not resident in Mauritius?

16:15

Finally, a referendum for the Chagossian people was debated in Committee and I know it was also proposed in the other place. Throughout our debates, the theme that has come up time and time again is that the Government have signally failed to consult the Chagossian people on any of this. The International Relations and Defence Committee’s short survey of the views of the Chagossians—another report that would be worthy of reading by the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Kerr—bore out just how strongly the Chagossians feel about this Bill. We on this side of the House are immensely grateful to that committee. I know it did not have much time to do its work, but it did its survey swiftly and effectively, ably supported by its excellent clerks, who I know worked very hard to complete the work in time. Incidentally, I will be interested in the Government’s response to that. I do not think we have seen anything from them yet.

That consultation by the Select Committee is clear that the Chagossian people are far from satisfied with the Government’s position, underlining the imperative for the Government to undertake their own consultation. I know it is the Government’s view that the Chagossians have no right to self-determination in law, and I also know how painful it was for the Chagossian people to hear the Minister express that view from the Dispatch Box in Committee. Whatever the Government’s view on the legal position, it is clear that the Chagossians have, if not a legal then at least a moral right to be consulted. The International Relations and Defence Committee stated in its report:

“The legal position is widely regarded as morally unsatisfactory, given the Chagossians’ distinct history”.

Indeed, in Committee the Minister herself said:

“However, the situation is that history has taken us to a position where, much as we do not like it and it goes against some of the things that we feel and what we may even argue is the moral case, the legal situation is, I am afraid, as it is”.—[Official Report, 25/11/25; col. 1292.]

This Bill is, as we have said many times, a political choice. Ministers could have chosen not to do it, and they could have done the right thing. Ministers could have chosen to consult the Chagossian people before they agreed this treaty. They could have held a referendum of the Chagossian people, and again they chose not to. The Government should stop hiding behind the potential decisions of international courts and take ownership of the treaty for which they are responsible. They have chosen not to consult the Chagossians before proceeding. We disagree with that in the strongest possible terms and we will support amendments that would deliver the referendum that the Chagossian people morally deserve. I beg to move.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, it might help the House if I were to provide a brief overview of the International Relations and Defence Committee’s recent report, which my noble friend Lord Callanan referred to, on Chagossian views on the agreement concerning the Chagos Archipelago. What I will cover touches on many of the amendments in this group.

On 11 November last year, we were asked by the Government and Official Opposition Chief Whips to undertake a short piece of work on the impact of the Bill, including on the Chagossian community. In Committee, the Government also invited us to, and I quote the Minister,

“engage a range of Chagossians to ascertain their views on the implications of the Diego Garcia treaty, and to produce a report”.—[Official Report, 11/11/25; col. 227.]

We accepted the invitation because we thought it important to allow Chagossians to have their say and believed that our previous work on the agreement meant that we were well placed to do so.

Time, however, was very much against us. Within about a month, we had to launch a mechanism to gather views from a globally dispersed population, allow Chagossians time to respond and leave us sufficient time to analyse the responses and produce a report in time for the debate today. This time pressure shaped how we designed and conducted this exercise, leading to our decision to conduct an online survey. Had circumstances allowed, we would also have held a series of round table discussions directly with Chagossian community members, an approach we used in our previous work on the agreement.

In the end, the online survey was imperfect, but it was the only practical option available given the constraints, and it was no substitute for a proper consultation or referendum. We recognised the challenges it would pose, including potential language barriers, limited digital access and reliance on people submitting responses in good faith. Throughout the process, we have sought to mitigate these challenges, including through direct promotion of the survey among Chagossian community groups, providing translated versions in both French and Mauritian Creole, and adopting a post-collection data-checking process to strengthen the robustness of our survey results.

Our survey received over 3,000 responses from Chagossians in the United Kingdom, Mauritius, the Seychelles and beyond. This is an extraordinary response rate given the short time available and shows a high level of engagement from the global Chagossian diaspora, which is believed to number around 10,000. While we cannot claim to have provided a scientific measure of the collective will of the Chagossian people, the high volume of responses gives us confidence that the results provide meaningful insights into Chagossian perspectives on the agreement. Before going into detail on our findings, it is worth saying that, had successive United Kingdom Governments conducted a more comprehensive engagement exercise with Chagossians during the negotiations, our survey would not have been necessary.

I turn to our key findings. Our survey revealed several strikingly consistent themes. First, there was a profound and enduring sense of injustice. Many Chagossians describe the multigenerational hardships they and their families have experienced as a result of their forcible removal from the islands. Across responses, there was a powerful sense of the economic, cultural and emotional loss. Many spoke of the need for meaningful compensation to address the injustices experienced and a deep desire to return to the islands, whether to visit or to live, to reconnect with their homeland.

Secondly, the survey revealed widespread distrust of the Mauritian Government and a scepticism over their willingness and ability to meet Chagossian needs. While not universal, this sentiment was strongest among UK-based Chagossian and was shared by a significant number of respondents in Mauritius and the Seychelles. Many highlighted previous ill-treatment by the Mauritian Government and expressed concerns that Mauritian-led resettlement, financial support and environmental stewardship would not reflect Chagossian priorities.

Thirdly, Chagossians expressed a clear desire for greater agency, autonomy and voice in decisions that affect them and the future of the islands. Many felt sidelined by the negotiation process and lacked trust that the agreement would allow their needs to be met. Despite the fact that self-determination was not a subject of the survey, it was raised frequently, particularly by UK-based Chagossians who felt strongly that the Chagossian people should have a decisive say over the sovereign status of the islands.

For me, one of the starkest revelations from the survey is reported at paragraph 44. I should say before I refer to the detail that, because we did not want to raise false expectations, we deliberately asked no questions about sovereignty; indeed, there is no mention of it in the survey document we published. However, a very substantial proportion of UK respondents, and indeed some from Mauritius, used the free text boxes to make the point strongly that they would prefer the archipelago to remain under British sovereignty. What makes this so compelling is that the point is consistently and clearly made despite the appalling treatment the British Government have meted out to these people. If they would prefer British sovereignty in these circumstances, what does that say about the Government’s decision to grant sovereignty to Mauritius? I will come back to the Government’s recent Statement later, but it contained yet another example of the Government, with Mauritius, making decisions directly affecting Chagossians without involving them.

Our survey provided insights into Chagossian views on the technical aspects of the agreement. On resettlement, respondents asserted the importance of employment opportunities and infrastructure as key enablers for resettlement. The absence of healthcare, education, housing and other basic services were seen as significant obstacles. The exclusion of the island of Diego Garcia, the only island with any real infrastructure, was a particular source of frustration for some.

On financial support mechanisms, respondents emphasised the need for direct financial support and for Chagossian-led oversight of the £40 million trust fund established under the agreement. Respondents were clear that meaningful financial support for the Chagossian community is not simply a matter of easing material hardship but a moral obligation. Chagossians see financial payments as a way to deliver justice and provide redress. In that context, many felt that the £40 million allocated to the trust fund falls short of the scale of harm endured and does not represent adequate reparation. There was scepticism that Chagossians living in the UK, but also those living elsewhere, would be able to benefit from the fund, given that it is to be administered from Mauritius.

On marine conservation, respondents advocated strongly for approaches that include Chagossian co-stewardship of marine resources. The importance of integrating traditional Chagossian knowledge into modern conservation frameworks was highlighted.

We offer a cautious welcome to the Government’s Statement of 15 December. It addresses some of these concerns but by no means all, and I am sure that the remaining ones will surface in the debates to come. The Statement confirms Chagossian stewardship of the trust fund, albeit with just one UK representative on the 12-member board, which in my personal opinion, given the likely relative distribution of the Chagossian diaspora, does not seem fair.

The Statement clarifies the resettlement criteria, which will extend resettlement rights to Chagossians born on the islands and their children but not their grandchildren, and confirms that Chagossians will be able to hold British and Mauritian citizenship. Nevertheless, full-scale resettlement remains a distant prospect, so heritage visits will continue to be a vital means for Chagossians to be able to re-establish a connection to the islands and should therefore be reinstated without delay. It is essential that the Government continue to explore ways to increase support for Chagossians in the UK and ensure that they too really can access the benefits of the trust fund.

Finally, I thank my fellow committee members and all the committee staff, who worked hard to deliver this challenging piece of work against such a difficult timeframe. Most importantly, the committee thanks the Chagossian people who engaged with our survey. We hope that, in a small way, we have provided them with a long overdue opportunity to have their voices heard.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 11, 12, 13 and 16, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lilley, who is detained by difficult transport situations in France—he is perhaps not the only person in that situation—and, in the interest of brevity, to my own Amendments 24 and 25. Some of them would make Mauritius responsible for any outstanding reparation claims—it seems odd that that needs to be said, but such is the asymmetry of this deal in every other regard that it is worth setting out that it would be very strange if Britain remained liable despite having handed away the territory—while some ask for ratification to be delayed until after we have heard from your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee.

In the interests of brevity, I shall talk about just three points in this group. The first is the timing of the ratification process. A judicial review was brought on 26 October by some diasporan Chagossians, some of them born on the Chagos Islands and some born in exile. Lengthy and detailed arguments were heard that day, and the judgment was initially expected on the same day. Then we were told that the ruling would come the following week, and then that it would come before Christmas, and now that it will come on 12 January. So why are we breaking with precedent and convention and rushing ahead with Third Reading without the customary lapse of at least three days between Committee and Third Reading?

It seems to me unfortunate that we are creating the appearance of collusion. We are creating the appearance of rushing through the Bill so that the judicial review will be ineffective. That criticism could easily have been anticipated—the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, said she had never heard about prebuttal, but there will be a lot of prebuttal and rebuttal and some fairly crucial “buttal” in all this, I suspect—by our observing our normal timetables and allowing a reasonable time to elapse.

The second is the point referred to by my noble friend Lord Callanan: the decision on 8 December by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which called on

“both Mauritius and the United Kingdom to suspend ratification of the agreement, and to engage immediately in a renewed dialogue to ensure the free, prior and informed consent of the Chagossian people”.

Given that the entire Bill is predicated on this Government’s exaggerated deference to non-binding opinions by courts that have no jurisdiction, that alone ought to have put an end to the entire business. If we are so in hock to UN bodies—without jurisdiction, in this case—telling us what they think, which we treat as final and binding, why did we do so on the first but not on this?

16:30

That brings me to my third point and the bulk of what I want to talk about. Exactly as that committee suggests, why are we not consulting the people most concerned in a meaningful way—the only people who have ever constituted a permanent population of the Chagos Archipelago? This should be an utterly uncontentious point. I hope that all of us believe in the basics of democracy and self-determination. Every party here, according to its principles, should be standing up for the rights of the Chagossian people: my party, because we believe in sovereignty and take the security interests seriously; for the Liberal Democrats the clue is in their name, as the party pioneered the spread of representative government; and Labour has always argued for the spread of the franchise to include everybody, every group, and to empower people who otherwise did not have a voice. As I see my old friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, leaving the room, I add that there are considerable ecological objections to handing over maritime preservation. In fact, everyone, other than the one or two former Permanent Secretaries of the FCDO from whom we heard earlier, should be in favour of asking the people most concerned.

In all the hours of this debate, I have never really heard a strong argument to the contrary. The Minister, as my noble friend reminded us, is worth quoting again. She said that

“history has taken us to a position where, much as we do not like it and it goes against some of the things that we feel and what we may even argue is the moral case, the legal situation is, I am afraid, as it is”.—[Official Report, 25/11/25; col. 1292.]

For a whole bunch of reasons, I do not believe that the legal position is “as it is”. I am not going to make another Second Reading speech, but the jurisdiction of this court expressly excludes it from disputes between two Commonwealth countries, and a number of the premises on which the original decision was made have subsequently been falsified.

However, even if all that were true, what are we here for? What is the point of having representative government in this country if we are simply to channel decisions by some overseas court? There is nothing deterministic about this. We have a process and we can use it, and your Lordships can use it today by supporting the right of the Chagossians to have a voice in their own future.

We just heard from my noble friend Lord De Mauley about the extraordinary and touching loyalty of this population, who were doing a write-in option about British sovereignty when they were not asked about the sovereignty issue in the consultation. Despite how they have been treated and the forcible removal of the population in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they would still rather return to their ancestral islands as British overseas subjects. Let us at least apply the most basic principle of self-determination, on which the entire international order rests, and allow them a say.

If I am wrong, and they are happy to be numbered as so many Mauritian citizens, so be it. I do not think a single voice would be raised against a deal of the kind proposed if that were the case. However, if, despite all the wrongs and grievances that they have suffered, the people most involved want to retain British sovereignty, should we not, in a structured and formal way, allow them to make that position clear in a referendum?

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, my Amendment 32 would require a referendum of the Chagossian people, which we have heard about already, before any transfer of sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory could take place. I thank those noble Lords who have added their names to the amendment. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for bringing us the results from his committee; they have been very instructive to this debate. At its heart, the amendment is very simple. It asks whether a people who were shamefully removed by force from their homeland and who have been denied a voice that the rest of us enjoy should be finally allowed to speak for themselves. I believe the answer to that question is yes, absolutely.

Of course, the Chagossian community did not leave their islands by choice. They were removed by the British state and scattered across the world. Since that moment, decisions about their future, and about a homeland they were forbidden to return to, have been taken over their heads, in rooms to which they were not invited. If there was ever a community entitled to the clearest expression of self-determination, it is this one.

The Minister has argued that a referendum could not alter the terms of the treaty, but that is to misunderstand the purpose of this amendment, or indeed any other amendment which calls for the right of self-determination for the Chagossian community. The issue before us is not whether a referendum rewrites international law but whether Parliament is prepared to authorise the transfer of sovereignty without the consent of the people most directly affected by it. This House has both the historic right and the responsibility to insist that consent comes first.

We have already heard that the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published its opinion on 8 December. That is something new in the international sphere that we hear so much referred to in this House. It gives its opinion on the process of this treaty and some of its contents, especially in relation to the explicit prevention of the return of the Chagossian people to their ancestral lands in Diego Garcia. In relation to the process which the Government have engaged in, the committee said that the lack of meaningful participation of the Chagossian people is

“affecting their rights and lands, restricting the exercise of their right to self-determination”.

The UN committee clearly believes, despite all that we were told in Committee, that Chagossians have a right of self-determination. I would be very much obliged to hear from the Minister on this specific point when she responds.

I also worry greatly that to proceed without consent from the Chagossian people would establish a deeply troubling precedent—one that I know is already feared by other populations across our cherished overseas territories. If sovereignty of one overseas territory can be transferred without the freely expressed will of its people, then no territory can be entirely reassured. Self-determination cannot be conditional on convenience or on the balance of diplomatic pressure exerted on the UK by a coalition of our adversaries, either through an international court issuing a non-binding advisory opinion or by other means.

In all other parts of our British Overseas Territories, there is a simple principle that is acknowledged by everyone: people get to decide their own future. But the Chagossians are told that this principle does not apply to them because they are not a permanent population. That argument cannot possibly stand because it was our Government who made them not a permanent population; the UK Government ensured that they could not be. To deny them self-determination on that basis is to compound a historic injustice with a present one.

Of course, the Government will be aware that there is now a Chagossian Government in exile. Denied a voice yet again by a Government who trumpet their respect for international law, the Chagossians have now elected their own leader here in the United Kingdom—a Government in exile, if you will. Surely our Government must now acknowledge that they have got it wrong in not seeking the views of Chagossians before handing away their homeland to Mauritius.

What is striking is that the Chagossian community are united in a call for a referendum. The Minister will refer to a broad range of views on sovereignty within the Chagossian community, and that is absolutely true, but the Chagossian community has consistently referred to the right to self-determination, whether they live in the UK, the Maldives or the Seychelles. The Chagos Refugees Group, which seems to be the only group that the UK Government engage with, has only ever called for self-determination. Similarly, the UK Chagossian groups, including Chagossian Voices, BIOT Citizens and others, have echoed that call. Across generations and across the diaspora, they are asking for the same thing: not special treatment but equal treatment; not a veto over foreign policy but a voice for their own destiny.

Taking that wide range of views into account—a point repeated frequently by the Minister in this place, and in the other place—it is clear that this amendment does not dictate the outcome of a referendum. It does not presume what the Chagossians will decide, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, has said. It simply says that they must be asked, and the answer must matter. If we are serious about self-determination and believe that it is a principle, not a slogan, then we cannot exempt the Chagossians from it. I urge the House to support this amendment in a cross-party spirit and affirm that no people, especially one wronged so grievously by the UK Government, should be denied the right to decide its own future.

In closing, I refer to Amendment 33 on “Referendum No. 2” in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. While, of course, I believe my amendment is better as it is a condition precedent to the treaty being implemented, I will also support his amendment because, as we say in Ulster, half a loaf is better than no bread. Despite that, I hope noble Lords will support Amendment 32.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I regret that I missed the opportunity to add my name in support of Amendment 32 from the noble Baroness. It is remarkable and significant that there is sufficient interest in the Chagossian community, after so many years since they and their forebears were evicted, to form with due process a Government in exile. I have already exchanged emails with the nominated First Minister, Mr Misley Mandarin.

The Minister was perhaps too optimistically dismissive in Committee when she suggested that there was insufficient Chagossian presence on the atoll to form or justify an independent authority. There is none there; they were evicted in the 1970s. There is also the recent finding of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to consider. Have the Government considered whether this might influence the thinking and advisory findings of the international court, which triggered this Government’s search for a long-term arrangement for Diego Garcia as a military base?

I note that the other far neighbour of the Chagos Archipelago, the Maldives, has raised seemingly legitimate human rights concerns about the Government’s methods of rushing these matters through this House. The number of amendments on Report is a reasonable measure of the many concerns held in this House. Though the treaty has been agreed, I urge the Government to proceed at a measured pace to allow these many concerns to be properly and fully considered. Will they reassure the House that there is no set time limit for these national procedures to be considered, as, if they were to be conceded, it might invalidate the treaty as signed on 22 May 2025?

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, before I speak to my Amendments 33A and 18, I totally support the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, in her Amendment 32 and hope that noble Lords will accept that it is a really sensible way forward. So much has happened even since we started talking about this issue a while ago. We have heard about the committee report. I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for a very good report which ends up saying what many of us thought: obviously we cannot say it of every single Chagossian but, overall, they feel that they want to stay part of a British island archipelago. We would not be here if there had been no forced removal originally and the people of the Chagos Islands had been afforded a self-determination referendum back in 1965, as the Ellice Islands were prior to their detachment from the Gilbert Islands.

The report of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is new. I do not understand why the Government are pushing this so quickly. Why is it being rushed through? Why are we having Report and Third Reading all in the same week, when there is so much controversy over this issue? It seems very strange.

16:45

Noble Lords always say that there is no such thing as conspiracy, but there may be a bit of conspiracy about this whole issue. I totally support Amendment 32, and I also support Amendment 33 from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, because sometimes a bird in the hand is worth something if you cannot get two birds in the hand. I hope noble Lords will support Amendment 32. My Amendment 33A adds to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and he may want to explain why he could not accept it, because it was simply adding to the fact that there should be a referendum on the Chagossian people.

To me, Amendment 18 goes to the heart of constitutional responsibility, parliamentary integrity and respect for the rule of law. Most importantly, it seeks to give respect to a people who have had precious little from any Government over the years. At its heart, this amendment wants to do no more than give our court an opportunity to tell us if the Chagossians have rights we should be considering before we conclude the Bill’s passage. This amendment does not seek to determine the outcome of any court case, and it does not trespass on the independence of the judiciary. It does something far more modest and important. It ensures that Parliament does not irrevocably legislate away rights, territory and legal status while a live judicial review directly concerning the lawfulness of the Government’s actions remains unresolved.

The judicial review has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hammond. Misley Mandarin v the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office concerns fundamental issues arising from the proposed transfer of sovereignty. It has been brought by the Chagossians themselves—the people whose lives, identity, nationality and future are directly affected by this Bill—with help from various people, including the Great British PAC. The judgment as to whether the case can proceed was originally expected to be decided in October; then it was moved to November, and then December. We are now told that judgment will not be handed down until 12 January. It is very strange that this is being rushed through the week before that judgment. By then, of course, if the Government get their way, the Bill will have completed its passage through Parliament.

If the Bill proceeds without pause, the court will be asked to rule on a situation that Parliament has already made irreversible. That would risk rendering the judicial review academic, not because the claim lacks merit but because Parliament moved too fast. That should trouble every member of this House, because we have prided ourselves on acting as a constitutional longstop. We are not here merely to nod through government legislation, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hammond. We are here to ensure that law is made carefully, proportionately and with full regard to legal process. It is a well-established principle that Parliament should be slow to legislate in a manner that pre-empts or undermines live judicial proceedings, particularly where those proceedings concern the rights of a specific identifiable group.

This amendment does not block the Bill or frustrate government policy. It simply says this: let us wait for the courts to speak before we switch on provisions that would extinguish British Indian Ocean Territory status for most of the archipelago, alter nationality law, and give effect to an irreversible transfer of sovereignty. That is not obstruction but prudence, in my view.

The Government may say that they are confident in their legal position. If that is so, they have nothing to fear from waiting a matter of weeks for the judgment to be handed down, considered and reported to Parliament. If the Government are not prepared to wait, as I said earlier, we must ask why.

The Chagossian people have already experienced what happens when decisions about their homeland are taken hastily and without consultation. They were removed before the law could protect them. Their voices were ignored, and their rights were treated as expendable. This House now has a chance to show that we have learned from that history.

This amendment does not take sides in the litigation. It respects the court, respects Parliament and respects the principle that irreversible legislation should not be rushed through while its legality is actively being tested. I therefore urge noble Lords to support this amendment, not as a political gesture, but as a statement of constitutional responsibility. Let us pause, wait for the judgment and legislate with our eyes fully open. I commend the amendment to the House.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to the six amendments to which I have attached my name in this grouping—Amendments 23 to 25, 27, 52 and 53—and also in support of Amendment 32. I will begin with Amendment 24.

Since Committee there have been a number of critical developments, to which some noble Lords have already referred today. The rationale for the Bill and the treaty to which it relates was that they are essential if we are to uphold the international rules-based order. Yet on 2 December a key organ of the rules-based international order, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued a formal decision, the substance of which I must put on the record. The decision:

“Calls upon Mauritius and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to suspend the ratification of the bilateral agreement”,


and:

“Urges Mauritius and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to engage immediately with the Chagossian people … and to respect and guarantee their human rights under the Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, including: Their right to return to their ancestral lands in Diego Garcia Island; Their right to self-determination while ensuring the full and meaningful participation of the Chagossian people in all decision-making processes impacting them and their land; Their cultural rights, including their access to cultural and spiritual sites and to preserve their cultural heritage; Their right to effective remedies and full repatriation, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition”.


Thus, we are confronted not simply by an organ of the rules-based international order criticising the Mauritius treaty and the Bill but by a call for the suspension of treaty ratification. It is particularly striking that this decision flatly contradicts what the Minister said on 18 November, when she asserted that self-determination does not pertain to the Chagossian people. From the perspective of the rules-based international order, it clearly does apply to them. That is why it is imperative that we vote for Amendment 32, eloquently spoken on by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster.

If the Government are intent on continuing with ratification, your Lordships’ House faces an immense responsibility because we constitute the one other means by which ratification can be suspended for 13 months if we refuse to give the Bill a Third Reading. In the intervening period there can be time for a rethink and the development of a response to the presenting difficulty that, rather than abstracting and thereby distorting one principle of international law above all others—colonial territorial integrity—places that principle in its proper relationship to self-determination.

Obviously, I hope that when the Minister responds, she will indicate that the Government will not pursue the treaty to ratification. If she does not, the responsibility we face will be very clear. Quite apart from all the other problems with the treaty and the Bill, the fact that they undermine the rules-based international order, rather than upholding it, demonstrates why this treaty and Bill must and should be abandoned.

On Amendment 23, quite apart from the fact that no territorial integrity is absolute in the sense that it is subject to self-determination—as the history of Czechoslovakia eloquently testifies—this point is greatly compounded in relation to territorial integrities that have been imposed by imperial powers, such as that pertaining to the colonial unit that covered Mauritius and the Chagos Islands prior to 8 November 1965. In this regard, it is quite impossible to understand the great wrong done to the Chagossian people if we have regard only to their forced removal. The root of the difficulty goes back to the decision to deny them the right of self-determination in 1965, which, if provided, would have made their forced removal between 1968 and 1973 unthinkable. In this context, neither the advisory judgment nor anything else in international law states that it is wrong for the territorial integrity of a colonial unit to be changed prior to decolonisation if this change is made to give effect to the principle of self-determination.

This point is eloquently demonstrated by the experience of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, which provide arguably the most relevant comparator to Mauritius and the Chagos Islands. Although the Gilbert Islands and the Ellice Islands were separated by 800 miles and comprised different people groups, they were in the same colonial unit. When the UK Government proposed decolonisation, the representatives of the Ellice Islands strongly objected to the notion of a new independent sovereign state consisting of the two sets of islands because, quite apart from the distance between them and the fact that they were from different people groups, the population of the Gilbert Islands was far greater than that of the Ellice Islands, such that the latter would be condemned to being permanently outvoted by what they regarded as another country.

The UK Government responded by suggesting a self-determination referendum, in which the options were the Ellice Islands remaining part of the same jurisdiction as the Gilbert Islands or becoming a separate jurisdiction in their own right. Although not everyone supported separation, a very clear majority did. The UK then detached the Ellice Islands in 1976, creating a separate colony that went on to become the independent state of Tuvalu in 1978, while the Gilbert Islands became the independent state of Kiribati in 1979.

The imperative for the provision of a self-determination referendum for the Chagossians in 1965 was even greater than that pertaining to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands because the distance between Mauritius and the Chagos Islands was significantly greater, as was the population differential, with the Chagossians standing at far greater risk of being permanently outvoted by the Mauritians. There was and is, however, an even greater imperative for the provision of a self-determination referendum for the Chagossians, which is testified to by the definition of the presenting difficulty by the advisory opinion, page 1 of which states:

“Between 1814 and 1965, the Chagos Archipelago was administered by the United Kingdom as a dependency of the colony of Mauritius”.


Crucially, therefore, the Chagos Islands’ relationship with Mauritius was never on all fours, rather giving effect to colonialism within a colony such that, rather than being a full part of the colony of Mauritius, the Chagos Islands were only ever

“a dependency of the colony of Mauritius”.

Being on all fours is central to being part of the same territorial integrity, for the reasons set out by the UN resolutions set out in Amendment 23.

The absence of complete equality of citizenship demonstrates not the negation of colonialism but its presence. This, however, was completely absent, as demonstrated by the failure of the constitution of the colony of Mauritius to make provision for the election of representatives of the Chagos Islands to the Mauritian Legislative Council. All this sets out the very clear imperative for our voting in support of Amendment 32.

This takes me neatly to Amendment 25. The Mauritius treaty implies that the Chagossians want to be part of Mauritius, such that the change in the territorial integrity of the Chagos Islands back to pre-November 1965 days, when the islands were a dependency of Mauritius, is the right and proper thing to do. There are, however, four major difficulties with this. In the first instance, as a dependency of Mauritius rather than a full part of Mauritius, the Chagossians were, even at the happiest time of the relationship with Mauritius—

17:00

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

Could I ask the noble Lord to wind up, please?

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

In the second instance, this difficulty was greatly compounded by the willingness of the Mauritian Cabinet of Ministers to accept £3 million in 1965 to become a party to the forced removal of the Chagossians, agreeing to receive them from the Chagos Islands. Had they been part of the same people civically, this would have been unthinkable, and they would have fought for the rights of their brothers and sisters—not allowing citizens to be subject to this indignity.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I gently remind all noble Lords that arguments deployed in Committee should not be repeated at length on Report.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 32, to which I have added my name. Giving the Chagossian people a say before their homeland is transferred to Mauritius is not an unreasonable demand; it is basic justice. At its heart lies the principle of self-determination embedded in international law and central to the United Kingdom’s own foreign policy tradition. Article 1 of the United Nations charter affirms

“the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”.

It is the very principle on which the United Kingdom has relied in relation to the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, where referenda were rightly held and the will of the people to remain British was respected.

Self-determination is not a modern invention. It has underpinned the constitutional settlement of all Britain’s overseas territory. There is no principled reason why it should not apply here. The Chagossians are a people; they have their own language, culture and traditions, and a distinct identity that has endured despite expulsion. Above all, they have a profound and enduring connection to their islands. Despite their expulsion between 1968 and 1973, they have remained a cohesive people, the majority of whom oppose the transfer of their island to Mauritius, as the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, so clearly indicated earlier. It is therefore extraordinary that a Government who claim to champion human rights and the rule of law are asking this House to approve legislation that enables the most profound constitutional decision imaginable for the Chagossian people—the disposal of their homeland—without giving them any opportunity to vote on their future.

As mentioned earlier, even the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has expressed serious concerns about the lack of consultation, calling for the ratification to be suspended and for the free, prior and informed consent of the Chagossian people to be secured. This Government speak readily of historic injustice and reparation. I therefore ask the Minister: why are those principles not applied to the Chagossian people—a people who were expelled from their homeland? This is an injustice. It is an old grievance, and a living one. It shapes how this Bill will be judged, not only by the Chagossians but by the wider world.

International law does not require the silencing of people; on the contrary, it protects their right to determine their own future. To hand over their islands and to extinguish their British-Chagossian identity, without first asking their opinion, would be a terrible injustice, and it would not go unnoticed. It would be remembered by other people, not least those in the British Overseas Territories who look to this Parliament to uphold the principle that their future is theirs to decide. This amendment offers the House a chance to uphold that principle, to break the cycle of exclusion and to begin to right a historical wrong. For the sake of the Chagossians and for the integrity of this House, I urge noble Lords to support the amendment.

Briefly, I also support Amendment 13, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, which states that the Act will come into force

“only once all outstanding legal actions, including appeals, by the Chagossian people have been determined”.

The failure of the Bill in that regard is bizarre. A judicial review challenging the exclusion of the Chagossians from meaningful consultation has been heard, and we are awaiting the judgment, as many noble Lords have mentioned. The arguments have concluded and the ruling is imminent—possibly as soon as 12 January, one week’s time—yet the Government are pressing ahead regardless. This is not a technicality; it is a vital democratic safeguard. Proceeding with legislation and a treaty ratification before the court has ruled raises serious constitutional concerns.

Can the Minister say why this debate has been tabled before the court ruling has been delivered? Why not wait one week? Why has the usual three-day rule between Report and Third Reading been ignored? Other noble Lords raised this point. Do the Government wish to conclude the treaty and lock in the transfer before the court has had its say, possibly in favour of the Chagossians’ right to self-determination? If this is not the Government’s intention, they must explain their actions to this House.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I will please the Government by being extremely brief, because I spoke at length at Second Reading and in Committee and have contributed to every Question we have had on this subject.

I agree entirely with the noble Baronesses, Lady Hoey and Lady Meyer. Why do we have this indecent rush? Why can the Government not wait until the UK High Court case judgment? Why are we having Third Reading so quickly after Report? I just do not understand why the Government are pushing this so quickly, particularly when they know that many noble Lords and noble Baronesses are still away for the first part of this week.

Two very important developments have taken place, which have been referred to already, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has 18 independent experts. Their role is to monitor the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It is an important UN committee in Geneva—as a tribunal, it is equivalent to a court within the wider UN family—and its opinion is advisory.

I suggest to the two Ministers that they have made great play of the fact that, even though the other two UN court decisions were advisory, the Government felt compelled, for many reasons, to go along with them. We heard a lot about the rules-based system—although I do not know where that stands now after what has happened in Venezuela. We heard a lot about the global South and about our reputation in the UN. The Government have said that, for those reasons and many others, they have to go with those UN advisory judgments. Why are those judgments different from this one? If the Government are taking those advisory decisions so seriously, why do they not pause and listen to what the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has just said in what was, frankly, an excoriating judgment? Anyone who reads it can go away concluding only that this UN committee is very concerned about the treatment of the Chagossian people.

I would certainly echo the points made by a number of noble Lords—it is excellent to see my noble friend Lord Lilley here, after his travails in getting here from France—but one thing that struck me when I first dealt with this case as the Minister for the Overseas Territories, when I started meeting different groups of Chagossian people, was the extraordinary way in which they were forgiving of the UK Government in spite of the way in which they had been treated. Surely, therefore, Amendment 32 is not asking for a great deal. They deserve a referendum.

My second point concerns something else that has changed significantly in terms of the overall climate in which we are looking at this matter: the Chagossian Government who have been set up in exile. I have had a look at them. Every single one of the Chagossian groups that has commented on this initiative has said that this is a very good idea indeed. Some of the many aspects of dealing with the Chagossian people have been the in-fighting between different factions, the number of factions in different countries and the extent to which they often do not agree on anything. However, they agree on one thing: that this Chagossian Government in exile are a good thing and should be listened to. They are taking it incredibly seriously. In that spirit, we have had two major changes in the overall situation: first, the UN committee in Geneva; and, secondly, the setting up of this Government in exile.

For those reasons, I very much hope that the Minister will agree to postpone the whole progress of this Bill. I also urge the House to vote for Amendment 32—because that would send an incredibly strong signal not just to the Chagossian people, that we feel deeply about them, but to the Government—so that we can have a proper referendum, hear and consult the Chagossians and make up for some of the wrongs of the past.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, like my colleague, I support Amendment 32 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Foster and Lady Meyer, and the noble Lords, Lord Callanan and Lord Hannan; I also support Amendments 19 and 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.

The proposal that Amendment 32 addresses is of major importance. It states:

“The Secretary of State must arrange a referendum on whether the British Indian Ocean Territory should … remain a British Overseas Territory, or … be transferred to and become the sovereign territory of the Republic of Mauritius”.


Then there are other actions as well. Surely the opinion of the Chagossians is of fundamental and undeniable importance; in fact, this should have been the very first step in the Government’s approach to the issue.

On 18 November, I had the honour of speaking in the Chamber about the Chagossian community—an entire group of people omitted from the process and left outside in the cold. It was my absolute privilege to meet many of them during their visit to Parliament. Their personal stories have left an indelible mark on my mind. I reiterate that precious right to self-determination and consultation by affirming my support for this amendment.

If accepted, this amendment will provide that no transfer of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory may take place until a majority of Chagossians support it; and that all eligible Chagossians, wherever they live, must be able to take part. That principle should be neither controversial nor awkward. The right of peoples to self-determination is not a slogan to be deployed selectively: we either fundamentally believe in self-determination or do not. It is a cornerstone of international law—one which this country has consistently championed. We need only to cast our minds back to the Gibraltar referendum in 2002 and the Falkland Islands referendum in 2013, both of which concerned the maintenance of British sovereignty.

It is entirely in the spirit of constitutional referenda that this process should be conducted. The sacred right of self-determination ought to go hand in hand with the sacred British sovereignty of overseas territories. They should not be treated as spectators to their own fate, spectators to a decision principally and directly affecting only their homeland and not ours. They deserve to have a say in the future of their own land.

17:15

Yet, the Government—should they choose not to accept the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster—will have deliberately snubbed the Chagossian people and consigned them to a status of citizenship that is second class to that of other overseas territories. We should remind ourselves that British sovereignty owes much to the Chagossian people. Their community has experienced unimaginable hardship and betrayal since their forcible removal from the islands all those years ago. Successive Governments acknowledged this travesty, though seemingly, the current Government have not learned from it.

This amendment is not about frustrating diplomacy. Rather, it is simply about the right of the Chagossian voice to be heard loud and clear. This is an entire group of people, a whole cultural identity with values, language, history and ancestry. We have no right to assault those immutable things. The Chagossian community has been broken enough. What do they get from this, where is their compensation and where is their consideration?

I am a proud Ulsterman; I do not think anyone can doubt that. I know what it feels like to have your identity trampled on, to have your culture vandalised, your voice ignored and your citizenship invalidated. It is because of my own experience that I refuse to stand by and watch it happen to yet another group of proud British citizens in the Chagos Islands.

I plead with the House: please think of the people that are hurting here. It is about them. These amendments offer the Government a chance to proceed with legitimacy and moral authority. Without it, the Bill risks entrenching the perception that the Chagossians are once again being spoken for rather than listened to. Therefore, I urge all noble Lords to support this amendment.

[Lord Kempsell (Con)]

My Lords, how can I add to the tour d’horizon we have had from the Benches on this side of your Lordships’ House, and indeed all sides, as we consider this group of amendments all about the moral and legal rights of the Chagossian people, who have been ignored, marginalised and set completely out of this Government’s process in the handling of the Bill?

I will add only very briefly, as I know we want to move to the end of the group, to dwell on the double standard now at the heart of this debate after the report by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. If we had a grain of sand for the number of times that this Government have given weight, space and gravity to non-binding opinions, rulings, mandates, exhortations and other statements by international bodies of any form, we would be able to recreate the shoreline of the Chagos Archipelago—except when it comes to the report from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Noble Lords have adumbrated the brutal nature of the statement released by that body totally condemning the Bill, and my noble friend Lord Hannan has Amendment 24 in his name which I support on this point. This was the United Nations intervening in the legislative process and suggesting that ratification should be paused altogether.

The United Kingdom has been a state party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination since 7 March 1969. There are more than 180 states party to that convention. I ask the Minister, who I know is doing her utmost to manage an unmanageable and controversial Bill, just what is the UK Government’s response to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination? How can the Bill possibly be in line with the commitments that the UK Government made under that convention to work to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination when the committee itself has been so clear in its view on the Government’s policy?

I also add my support to the speech of my noble friend Lord Bellingham, who dwelt on the status of this body in the UN family and system at a time when these questions feel so timely and we feel them so sharply. Are the Government really willing to ride roughshod over that opinion and completely ignore it?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I particularly want to speak today because I am on the IRDC. I am proud that we completed a near-impossible task given to us by Parliament, which was to try to summarise the feelings of the Chagossian community on the UK-Mauritius agreement. I do not know precisely, but we had about 10 days to organise that, supervise it and draw up a report. The credit for that, more than anything, should go to our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and to the secretaries—it was outstanding that they did that job in a few days before Christmas. It was an impossible job which belatedly answered the question of, “Why don’t we ask the Chagossians what they think about all this?”, but a good job was done.

At the heart of everything is the question of the views of the Chagossians or, perhaps more specifically than that, what has happened to them. Throughout all these debates—I have been involved in most of them one way or another—there is this black cloud over all the amendments and speeches, of the awareness of the profound injustice that was done in a short six-year period under Labour and Conservative Governments to remove some 1,400 to 1,700 people from their homeland in the most objectionable circumstances.

I constantly ask myself why it is not more of a cause celebre than it is. I can only answer that by saying that it was a small number of people. But it is not a small number of people if you are one of the people affected; the effect is 100%. I suppose it goes without saying that if more people had been involved, there would have been far more of an outcry about what happened. I will not repeat some of the things that have been said in the past about the way in which it was done.

I think we all recognise that, and subsequent Governments have recognised that, but it begs the question: what, if anything, can we do? It is not some crime committed in the ancient past; it is a crime committed within the lifetime of many people in this House. What can we, in practical terms, do to put it right?

We have heard a lot today—I am not unsympathetic to this—about holding a referendum. We have had something that has many of the characteristics of a referendum by means of our report, though I am sure that there are plenty of statisticians and experts on these things who would say it could be done far more effectively and far better. However, I am 99% confident about what the result of a referendum would be. It would probably be inconclusive in terms of a huge majority—there are divisions among the Chagossian community, which we know about—but our key themes, which Lord De Mauley has already referred to, are the inevitable consequences of holding a referendum. A referendum would undoubtedly find: the profound suffering

“felt by Chagossian communities at their displacement and a yearning for redress. Concern that the Mauritian government may not be able to fulfil the aspirations of Chagossians. A clear wish for greater Chagossian agency in future decisions made about the islands”.

We should therefore not expect anything stunning if the amendment is passed and there is a referendum. It would take time and be challenged by whoever were to lose it should the result be narrow. There are clear and distinct divisions among the Chagossians and there would be the usual arguments about who would be eligible to vote and about referendums, but writ large in this case.

We cannot redress the injustices of the past. We should focus our attention not on speculating about prolonging the process or on further referrals to further committees. We should concentrate on the heart of the practical things that could be done, of which there is one above all else. More than anything, the Chagossians want the right, whether they exercise it or not, to return to their homeland, even if it is only for visits. We are told by the military—I have no reason to dispute this—that that is simply not feasible so far as Diego Garcia is concerned. A Minister from the Commons, Stephen Doughty, who came before our committee when we produced an earlier report, had this to say. Even noble Lords who have not been in Parliament that long or been listening to Ministers’ responses for long will see the flaw in it. I asked, “Why can’t Chagossian people work at the depot? Why can’t they live side by side with the military if that is what some of them wish?” I was told that operationally it is “unsuitable and inappropriate”.

Unsuitable and inappropriate are pretty slippery terms which do not satisfy me unless they can be elaborated upon. That is what I speak to my noble friends on the Front Bench about. Diego Garcia is the only island in practical terms that people will desire to inhabit or re-inhabit. What is it especially about this military base that makes it impossible for civilian workers to live and work on that island but on a different part of it? Wherever you go in the United Kingdom, you will find examples of the military working alongside workers who go into the depot every morning, through security, and go back home in the evening. So far, I have had no satisfactory answer to that question, but an ounce of help is worth a pound of pity. If a practical proposal could be put forward to the Chagossians to say that contract workers work there all the time, and that we will give first refusal for any contract work that is required to native-born Chagossians, that is not an unreasonable request—we mentioned it in our report—but it would be action rather than words.

I close wishing we were not in this position and wishing that this particularly shameful period of British history had not happened, but there is no point in simply emitting words of anguish. What is needed now is one or two practical attempts to make the lives of Chagossians, who were so unjustly treated, more acceptable, and I put that to my Front Bench.

17:30

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is always informative to follow the noble Lord, apart from when he is having his witty barbs against my party, which is often the case. He made a very strong case today, and I hope that he may feel that his points are reflected in part of the text in my Amendment 33.

This has been an important debate and group. Since we are on Report, I will simply focus on the amendments that I have tabled: Amendment 19 and then, although it will be considered consequential, the more substantive Amendment 33. I am aware that for the noble Baronesses, Lady Hoey and Lady Foster, Amendment 33 will be a bird in one hand and half a loaf in the other, but nevertheless I am grateful for their prospective support. I give notice that I will likely test the opinion of the House on Amendment 19, and I understand that the Government have indicated that, if Amendment 19 is supported, Amendment 33 will be considered consequential. For the avoidance of doubt—and I know it is disappointing to the noble Baroness—we cannot support Amendment 33A, as that change would, in effect, link the arguments in my amendment with those on Amendment 32, which I will outline a little bit further.

The House has heard me on many occasions refer to the lack of legislative guarantees of the rights of the Chagossian community, including those that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has indicated with regard to the right of participation within Diego Garcia in particular, as well as resettlement into the wider archipelago. Because we are on Report, I will not rehearse the arguments I have previously made, but my amendments seek to resolve this as best as I have been able to draft. I hope that the Government will, even at this stage, reconsider and support them.

Amendment 33 states that, to address the lack of definitive legal right enshrined in statute in Mauritius law and acknowledged in the UK, we need formally to seek the views of the Chagossian community on whether they are willing to consent to the terms of the implementation of the treaty rights, which so far are only permissive in nature within the treaty—that is the essence if we are talking about self-determination. There is no point simply referencing self-determination if there are no legal rights to back it up, and that is the essence of what I am seeking to achieve. That would include the resettlement to the archipelago, distinct from Diego Garcia, the right of participation in opportunities of working in Diego Garcia and statutory involvement in the decision-making of the trust fund for their overall rights as the treaty is implemented.

Amendment 32 in the name of noble Baroness, Lady Foster, has some issues. She spoke with sincerity today, as she has in Committee and all the times we have raised these matters. First, I understand the views and political arguments of the Conservative Benches in support of her amendment, but the amendment would overturn a century of long-standing convention on those Benches that Parliament should not retrospectively fetter the prerogative powers of treaty making. That is not necessarily the view of our Benches, but it is certainly the view of their Benches; this amendment would overturn that. I understand that is the deliberate process, but that is the consequence of what voting for it would bring about. It is an interesting and novel constitutional approach, but one where the consequence is worth recognising. Indeed, that was the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to earlier in his remarks.

Another issue is that, although the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and the noble Lords, Lord Morrow and Lord McCrae, spoke very strong, powerful, emotive words with regard to the right to self-determination, what they are proposing would be a limited right, because that limited right of self-determination is not about the ability to decide the future of Diego Garcia and the military base. The Official Opposition have indicated that it is non-negotiable that Diego Garcia will be retained in perpetuity as a military base. That is not a decision that has been made with the consent of the Chagossian people about what their territory would be used for. That is a predetermined decision. They have stated that today, and they stated it as recently as April 2024 in the letter from the Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, to the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons. If there is an argument for self-determination and consent, then presumably the argument of those supporting Amendment 32 is that that consent should include the use of Diego Garcia, but that has been precluded or ruled out. I do not see how that squares in that respect because, presumably, if the principled stance is one where only consent should be applied, then it should be applied also for Diego Garcia and the use of the military base.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

On what the noble Lord has said, surely limited self-determination is better than no self-determination, which is what is being put forward by the Government. Surely he must be concerned by the United Nations recent report in December last year in relation to the issues that have been stated there.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I read it carefully and I think my amendment covers the concerns in that committee’s report and the concerns raised in the IRDC. That is why my amendment has been drafted carefully. The noble Baroness is right in indicating that limited self-determination is better than no self-determination. The point is that her amendment does not have any limits to it, and it is her inability to square that aspect that I simply raise as an issue. However, that is, with respect, decisions that she and those that will be supporting it will make. I think it is worth recording that Amendment 32 would not give the Chagossian community the right of self-determination about part of the archipelago. That is worth stating categorically.

Amendment 32 also does not address rights. Indeed, what I feel we should be morally bound to address is the right that has been denied to that community for a long period, which is that of resettlement, and the right to be involved in decisions being taken going forward. We can only correct rights that are in our power to do so, and that would be by securing the consent of the Chagossian community before the treaty is ratified in order to ensure that there is statutory underpinning of the permissive elements of the rights that are in the treaty.

It is worth reflecting on the fact that the only rights that the Chagossian community may potentially have ahead of them are those that are provided for in the treaty. Indeed, the letter that I referred to from the former Foreign Secretary in April 2024 reiterated the previous Government’s view that the right of resettlement would not be accommodated. We are close to having rights enshrined for the Chagossian community for the first time in a very long time, but the treaty only goes as far as giving the potential ability for the Chagossian community if the Mauritian Government choose to do so.

Now that we hand over from our parliamentary processes, these Benches believe that it is correct to make the case that those rights should be underpinned in law, so I respectfully hope that the Government will be able to see this and accept it. If not, I will test the opinion of the House, and I do so respectfully, understanding the sincerity of the arguments being made so far by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and others.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, could he help me interpret Amendments 19 and 33? Amendment 33 would not delay ratification of the treaty. Its wording is a little odd in places. When we talk about self-determination, we are dealing with concepts, not chaps, so subsection (5) of the proposed new clause should refer to “principles” rather than “principals”. In proposed new subsection (5)(b), working out the difference between the “operation in” and the “opportunities of working in” Diego Garcia is a little complex. I think we are talking about jobs on the base, which could be expressed more clearly.

I see nothing in principle against Amendment 33. But I pause at Amendment 19, because under it, as I read it, ratification would have to be delayed until the referendum called for in Amendment 33 had been carried out. If that is the case, I cannot support it.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I accept the admonishment with regard to the spelling and drafting. I cannot blame the clerks for that; it is my fault. If, in proposed new subsection (5)(b), “participation in the operation in” and “opportunities of working in” Diego Garcia means jobs, I accept that also.

Recognising that the treaty is some distance from being ratified anyway, I strongly believe that other elements need to be in place, in agreement with the Government of Mauritius, before it is ratified. These measures are some of the elements that should be put in place before the treaty is ratified. We will discuss other elements in considering later groups, but between now and ratification, extra measures should be put in place to ensure that the consent of the Chagossian community is given and that their rights are underpinned by statute.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, as I have stated throughout the Bill’s progress through the House, I would like to acknowledge at the outset the importance of the islands to Chagossians as well as the different views within the Chagossian community on their future. This Government deeply regret the way the Chagossians were removed from the islands. We are committed to building a relationship with the Chagossian community that is built on respect and an acknowledgment of the wrongs of the past.

I also acknowledge the strength of feeling in this House on addressing the range of issues raised by Chagossian communities here in the UK and in other parts of the world. In this context, I thank the IRDC for undertaking its recent review and publishing its report on the views of the Chagossian community regarding the UK-Mauritius agreement on the Chagos archipelago, including Diego Garcia. As the report acknowledges, there is a wide range of diverse views among the Chagossian community, and I thank the noble Lord for introducing the report.

Such diversity of views is vital when considering Amendments 2, 9, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 32, 33, 33A and 55, which pertain to engagement and consultation with the Chagossian communities. I agree with those in this House who say that transparency and frankness with the Chagossian community is vital. That is why I have resisted some of the discussions around consultations and referendums. To give the impression that a consultation or referendum can elicit a change to a treaty that has already been negotiated and signed in a state-to-state negotiation is wrong.

The negotiations on the treaty were necessarily state to state, with our priority being to secure the full operation of the base on Diego Garcia. That is what we have done. This deal will protect our national security for generations and ensure that the UK keeps unique and vital capabilities to deal with a range of threats.

17:45

Chagossians have been critical of the failure to consult them. But the view of successive Governments, and of the courts to date, is that there is no duty to consult. The IRDC report also acknowledged that international law does not provide a right of self-determination to Chagossians. This has also been the long-standing view of successive UK Governments and domestic and international courts. The truth is that there is no right to self-determination and therefore there is no legal entitlement to a referendum.

As the statement by the Chagos Refugees Group, delivered by its chair Olivier Bancoult last month, demonstrates, while there are different views among Chagossians, there is strong support for the treaty from a significant number in that community. It is important to respect the many different views within the Chagossian community, including groups that welcome the deal. Claims that all Chagossians are opposed to the treaty are failing to respect the differing views of this diverse community.

The Government therefore cannot accept Amendments 2, 9, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 32, 33 and 55, all of which propose consultation or referenda, or concern ongoing litigation related to those topics. That said, we of course agree with the need to support Chagossians and that they should have a greater voice in how that support is delivered.

On 12 December, the Mauritian Government approved legislation to establish the Chagossian trust fund provided for in the treaty. This confirms that the trust fund will be operated for Chagossians by Chagossians. The fund will be operated by a trust fund management board made up of a Chagossian majority, including a UK-based representative and a Chagossian chair. Decisions on the use of funds will be taken by a trust fund management board. The board will comprise 12 members, seven of whom will be Chagossian, ensuring a majority representation. The chair of the trust fund will be a Chagossian, selected by the Chagossian members of the board.

Following extensive representations and engagement by the Government, the Bill also now confirms that a UK-based Chagossian representative will sit on the board alongside representatives living in Mauritius and the Seychelles. The UK high commissioner to Mauritius will also attend board meetings. We welcome these commitments by the Mauritians, which will ensure that the trust fund reflects the full spectrum of perspectives within the Chagossian community and is transparent.

The treaty is clear that it represents full and final settlement of all claims by Mauritius. In relation to the Chagossians, the English courts and the European Court of Human Rights have both concluded that the claims of Chagossians in relation to their removal from the archipelago have been definitively settled through the payments made under the 1982 settlement. This and successive Governments have made it clear that there is no basis for any further claim for reparations or compensation. Separate to the treaty, the UK Government will continue to support Chagossians living in the UK, including support for newly arrived British citizens and a wide range of projects that will benefit the Chagossian community. In this context, the Government will not be accepting Amendments 11, 45, 46, 52 or 53 on the management of the trust fund and other financial issues relating to Chagossians.

Amendments 4, 27 and 41 relate to Chagossian resettlement. For a range of reasons, including the security and financial implications, for over 50 years no UK Government have sought to facilitate return to the islands. The IRDC conducted a survey of Chagossians as part of its engagement exercise. Noting the methodological issues in that survey, including those highlighted by the subsequent Dunne review and the IRDC report itself, it is none the less clear that views on resettlement were, as you would expect, mixed. Just under half of the respondents said they were unlikely to resettle on the outer islands. Some specifically stated they would rather remain where they currently live, as opportunities were likely to be greater than on the islands.

The IRDC report also highlighted that several respondents born on the islands felt that their age or health may prevent them from returning to the islands. Meanwhile, the Dunne review, which provides a quantitative analysis of the entire body of Chagossian respondents to the IRDC survey, extrapolates that a majority of participants—51%—would exercise the opportunity to resettle under Mauritian sovereignty. Of this total, 93% of native Mauritian Chagossians and 50% of non-natives expressed a desire to resettle.

This Government, recognising the importance of resettlement to many Chagossians, have agreed under the terms of the treaty that it is open to Mauritius to start a programme of resettlement to the archipelago beyond Diego Garcia. Mauritius has announced that any future programme of resettlement will be available to all eligible Chagossians, regardless of where they live.

UK-based Chagossians who were born on the archipelago, and their children, who do not already hold Mauritian citizenship will be eligible for Mauritian citizenship, and therefore will be able to participate in any future programme of resettlement while retaining their British citizenship. As of April 2025, 94% of Chagossians with British nationality also had Mauritian citizenship.

We need to be very clear that this treaty provides the only viable path to resettlement on the archipelago. Successive British Governments have never been prepared to do this and those who seek to stymie the passage of this Bill offer no viable alternative, thereby doing a disservice to all those Chagossians who want to see the possibility of resettlement become a reality.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

Before the Minister sits down, could she tell us whether our very distinguished Attorney-General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, had given any advice—admittedly, she cannot tell us what advice—to the Government on the report of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which has come out so strongly against what His Majesty’s Government are doing on the Chagos Islands?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Not that I am aware of. I point out that the committee to which the noble Baroness and others have referred is not a legal body of the UN; it does not speak for the UN or for any UN member states. It is important for noble Lords to be aware of that, so that they are not labouring under a misapprehension.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, could I clarify one point? She is aware that the committee was set up under the UN charter to monitor the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. All UN members signed up to that and, although it is advisory, it carries a huge amount of influence, as do the other two tribunals, which are also advisory and which the Government have said they need to go along with.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

They are very different things. I encourage the noble Lord to investigate this a little further and am happy to work with him on that. The fact is that this particular committee does not speak on behalf of the UN and there are many equivalent committees across the UN that also do not speak on behalf of member states. If noble Lords want to verify that, it is entirely up to them to do so, but that is the situation.

To continue, the Government’s priority remains the protection of the British people, including British Chagossians. As the location of a military base with sensitive capabilities and assets vital to the UK’s national security, it would not be appropriate for Diego Garcia to be included in Mauritius’s programme of resettlement. However, both the UK and the Republic of Mauritius remain committed to facilitating a programme of heritage visits to the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia. Chagossians will also retain the opportunity to work on Diego Garcia through contracted employment at the base.

In respect of Amendments 9, 16, 24 and 48 concerning the 2 December decision by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Government’s position is clear. The CERD is an independent body of experts that—I am repeating myself, but I want to make it absolutely clear for noble Lords—does not speak on behalf of the United Nations or of UN member states. The UK does not agree with the approach that the CERD has taken. The UN Secretary-General and the African Union chairperson have both welcomed the agreement. The treaty protects the base and our national security, which is why it has also been welcomed by the US, our Five Eyes partners and other important partners who appreciate the strategic importance of the base. Mauritius has also firmly and categorically rejected the CERD decision, and the Government therefore reject the tabled amendments.

Amendment 5 on migrants and asylum, from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, is not necessary and therefore we do not accept it. The treaty already ensures Mauritian responsibility for and jurisdiction over all migrants arriving to the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia. The treaty closes a potential illegal migration route to the UK. The UK Government are already in the process of agreeing with Mauritius the separate arrangements referenced in paragraph 10 of annex 2 of the treaty to assess and facilitate that exercise of Mauritian jurisdiction. There are ongoing negotiations; I will not provide a running commentary, but both Mauritius and the UK agree that it would be for Mauritius to take responsibility for any migrants, including for any asylum or international protection claims. There is therefore no need for the Government to provide a report on the negotiations through an amendment to the Bill. I hope that answers noble Lords’ queries about that issue at this stage and that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I thank the Minister for her response, but it seems to me that she still has not answered the fundamental question that many of my colleagues and others have posed to her: why are some UN advisory tribunals to be obeyed without question? They should not be questioned and we have to do exactly what they say, but others can apparently be safely ignored when it does not suit the Government’s case. She tells us that Mauritius was against the conclusion, and I bet it was, but apparently—this is what I have read and I hope it is correct—Mauritius is also actually a member of the tribunal that found against the treaty and recommended that it be disposed of.

We have heard some fantastic contributions, but of course we have not heard the opinion of the FCDO mandarinate on the Cross Benches, who are normally so keen to tell us that international tribunals have to be respected without question—but apparently not this one.

Nevertheless, I am proud to speak alongside every noble Lord who has spoken up for the Chagossian people and outlined how they have been so ill-treated and for so long ignored. The Minister has said a number of times that there is a diversity of opinion within the Chagossian community. I am sure she is right, which is why we need a referendum to determine the absolute view of what those opinions are. I pay particular tribute to my noble friend Lord De Mauley and his committee for the sterling job that it has done in attempting, in so brief a period, to provide at least some information on what the Chagossian community think. The fact that so many of them responded so quickly in the period before Christmas underlines the concerns that many of them have about this agreement.

We also share my noble friend Lord Lilley’s concerns about the reparations. It seems reasonable that, once Mauritius has sovereignty over the islands, it would bear the burden of any future claims for reparations. I am also grateful to the Minister for her clarification about the legal position on asylum seekers.

I will not detain the House any further. I reiterate our firm support for Amendment 19 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. It might be only half a loaf but we are grateful for that half. Still, we will also seek to be greedy and support the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, on the remainder of the loaf when those Divisions are finally called. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

Amendment 3

Moved by

[Lord Callanan]

3: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert
“, subject to subsection (2A).
(2A) Sections 2 to 4 of this Act come into force only when the duties outlined in section (Chagos marine protected area) have been discharged.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent the provisions from coming into force until the Government has published its plan to ensure the long-term protection of the Chagos Marine Protected Area.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly move Amendment 3 in my name. I will also speak about the other amendments in my name in this group, but I will not seek to pre-empt the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, when he gets around to proposing his amendments.

The ocean around the Chagos Islands is a uniquely rich and biodiverse environment. It is home to the UK’s greatest marine biodiversity, with unique species, major sea-bird populations and healthy reefs. As the custodians of that biodiversity, the UK has a proud record of increasing marine biodiversity. I know the Government have ambitions to continue that record, which we support. But by transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to the Mauritian Government, Ministers are putting the future of that MPA in an uncertain position. Yes, the treaty provides for Mauritius to maintain the MPA, but what tools do the Mauritian Government have at their disposal to discharge those responsibilities? I do not doubt their commitment, but I doubt their ability to actually enforce it.

18:00

Mauritius, as has been said many times, is around 1,300 miles away from the Chagos Islands. It has only a small coastguard. It has very limited resources and very limited assets with which to defend that marine protected area. Can the Minister please explain how the UK Government expect Mauritius to maintain the MPA, given those indisputable facts? She has referred a number of times to the commitment of Mauritius. I do not doubt that commitment, but I doubt its means and resources to actually enforce the MPA against hostile acts.

My Amendment 43 would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on how the Government expect the MPA to be preserved in perpetuity under Article 5 of this treaty.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 28 to 31A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who very sadly has been struck down by the ghastly flu. I had not intended initially to speak to these amendments, but was very happy to do so after hearing from him and reading the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, back in November, which horrified me and drew to my attention matters that I know the Chagossians themselves are also absolutely appalled by.

Without the clarity and protection sought by these amendments, this House is being asked to acquiesce not only in technical deficiencies in the Bill but in an act of stark neglect and hypocrisy that would destroy the UK’s credibility as a climate and environmental leader. At COP 29 in Baku, our Prime Minister said that

“the UK has sent a clear message … we are renewing UK climate leadership”.

He said:

“There is no national security, there is no economic security, there is no global security without climate security”—


linking climate leadership to national and global security.

We are being asked, despite that very public declaration of climate leadership, to pass a Bill that would allow ratification of a treaty to transfer control of one of the world’s most significant marine protected areas, if not the most significant. The Government admit that the terms of the future protection of that area are not yet dealt with and are to be dealt with later in a separate written agreement, not yet published, not yet scrutinised, not yet agreed and without any sanctions if none of that happens. It is an absolute abdication of responsibility, not only to the Chagossian people and to ourselves and our own principles of climate leadership but to the global concerns around climate.

Amendment 28 addresses the most basic constitutional failure in this process. Parliament is being asked to approve the transfer first and trust that the environmental safeguards will follow. No serious legislature should agree to that. If the protections matter—and the Ministers have agreed that they do—they should be visible, binding and tested before ratification, not promised to be dealt with afterwards.

Amendments 29 and 30, on allocation of funds to environmental protection and the power to withhold funds for non-compliance, should not be controversial if the Government are sincere that environmental stewardship is a priority. Why would we not be willing to hardwire that priority into the financial architecture of the agreement? Why would we resist earmarking funds explicitly for environmental protection? And why would we resist retaining leverage to withhold payments if the marine environment is degraded? Without any of these mechanisms, the UK is powerless to act in respect of the likely failures by Mauritius to protect the MPA.

Regrettably, it has to be stated that Mauritius is not a party likely to be relied on in such matters. According to the Environmental Performance Index compiled by Yale University, Mauritius ranks extremely poorly indeed at 173 out of 180 for the biodiversity and habitat category that measures countries’ actions towards retaining natural ecosystems. For maritime habitat protection, it is 83 out of 129 countries. Most crucially of all, for marine protection stringency it is 131 out of 131—absolutely last.

Amendment 31 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, confronts an uncomfortable but unavoidable reality—that of enforcement. The waters in question are vast. Enforcement is expensive and technically demanding. Constant enforcement is needed to prevent illegal fishing. Mauritius does not have the technical capacity to provide that. No serious Government should consider proceeding with any of this without a serious published assessment of enforcement capability and a proposal for its execution.

The Chagos marine protected area is not just another marine protected area; it is one of the largest, most intact, least exploited tropical marine ecosystems on this precious planet. Its value lies precisely in the fact that it has been strongly protected—something that the UK should be very proud of and extremely hesitant to throw away. This MPA functions as a global reference point—a living baseline—so that we can understand what marine ecosystems can look like when they are not relentlessly harmed. If, as many experts fear, the result of this treaty is deep-sea fishing across 99% of it, as opposed to the current situation where it is almost 100% protected, the consequences will be catastrophic and irreversible on any human timescale—sea-floor habitats flattened, food webs simplified and predator populations depleted. In the time available, I will not list all the species that will be destroyed.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness is making a magnificent case in her speech. The Blue Belt of marine protected areas is one of the greatest conservation stories in any of our lifetimes—something the UK has been so proud of for so many years. For the reasons the noble Baroness has described, it is a tragedy to see us go backwards when the appetite among the public, particularly after the recent Attenborough programme, is that we should grow, not shrink.

Does the noble Baroness also acknowledge that by removing the near 100% protection and reducing it down to 1%, there will be a flurry of fishing activity in those waters, which will make it impossible, from a security point of view, to protect what is, as we have heard from many speakers, an incredibly important and valuable military base? How do you police things? How do you ensure that those vessels are not spy vessels, kitted up with all kinds of technology to intercept the very important work that is happening? Right now, it is simple; going forward, it will not be.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

I agree 100% and could not have put it better myself. I hope that the Minister will address the points raised by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith.

As raised by a number of Oxford academics, there is also the additional, profound danger of deep-sea drilling once the very issues that my noble friend raised become a reality. Once effective control is surrendered and protections are weak or unenforceable, industrial pressure follows. Deep-sea drilling is the archetype of a low-probability, high-impact risk that will destroy and decimate this precious area.

Even routine drilling brings chronic pollution, noise and disturbance incompatible with meaningful protection. If the UK Government insist on proceeding without these amendments, or protections of equivalent force, the UK’s claim to climate and environmental leadership will collapse. We will be that country that lectures the world about marine protection, biodiversity and climate responsibility while quietly signing away one of the most important marine sanctuaries on earth.

Treaties are not acts of faith or promises; they are instruments of law. They need to include all the terms and consequences for their breaches. If environmental protections matter, as Ministers say they do—and we support that statement—it must not be possible to be ratify this treaty without these amendments or protections of equal strength.

Unusually, I will give my last words—noble Lords will not hear me say this often—to the Secretary of State for Energy, Ed Miliband, who stated last July:

“We know that climate change and nature loss are fundamentally linked … but we in this country have helped make a difference”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/7/25; cols. 29-30.]


That is very true regarding this marine protected area, and we do not want the future difference that we make to be a destructive one. I urge the Government to accept these amendments or similar protections.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as a trustee of the Blue Marine Foundation for many years and having been part of the negotiations with the British Government to produce the most exciting and real effect on marine protection that anyone has done. It is a great thing for us to have done. No other nation has done it, and it means that we have been able to bring out of the end of empire something that is really worth while for the future.

This is the crucial place, and the protection of the seas is crucial to the future of humanity. We are not talking about some vague, odd or additional bit; we are talking about a central issue. I cannot understand this Government. I wanted to be helpful to them, but I have to say to the Minister that this is not an acceptable position. We cannot give this up to a state which is unable to do what it—in all validity, I am sure—says it wishes to do. It cannot do it. It has neither the resources to do it nor the history of being able to do it.

My noble friend made the important point about the position and present situation of the state to which we are handing this responsibility. It has a terrible reputation. It has failed even with the seas close to its own homeland. We are handing over to it the safety of a place that is 1,000 miles from the area it does not protect now. How can we possibly agree to this? It is wholly contrary to all that Britain has fought for—the example we have given.

The Minister knows that I am not entirely in favour of some of the changes that my party seems to think would be helpful to the fight against climate change, so she cannot accuse me of being in any way party political on this. This is an unacceptable situation, and she will have to say to this House either that she accepts these amendments or that she will come back with changes at Third Reading which will mean that this, our particular contribution to the world, will be protected. If she does not do that, this will be a major betrayal of what Britain has done—of all political parties right across the board—for the past 25 years. It is a great achievement. We cannot throw it away, and this House should not allow us to do so.

18:15

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, we have heard two powerful and moving speeches. I will reference another Miliband—David Miliband, the former Foreign Secretary. One of the very last initiatives he brought forward was the Chagos Archipelago marine protected area. He said at the time that it was by far and away the most important environmental treaty and agreement that any Government had ever enacted. He pointed out that 92% of the UK’s biodiversity is located in the OTs, which is still the case. Some 32% of it is in the Chagos Archipelago.

All the research I did as an incoming Minister at the time completely reinforced the then Labour Government’s decision to launch this initiative and put so much effort and time into it. We are concerned about sea-birds, migratory turtles and coral bleaching, but my biggest concern is around fishing. All the research proved that, if you can put a stop to fishing, you prevent damage to the coral, because modern commercial fishing does untold harm to coral reefs. It will also have a big impact on apex species, such as sharks and rays, which are so important to the environment.

I am sorry to say this, but the Mauritian Government have a dreadful record on environmental protection. We may well give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they will raise their game and suddenly start finding resources to take this matter seriously, but what happens if they go the other way and future Governments in Mauritius, maybe even in 10 years’ time, decide that they can raise a great deal of money from issuing licences to the Chinese, the Taiwanese, the Bulgarians or whatever country wants to fish in these areas? We would have no control over that whatever. Whatever they say now, it could well be ripped up and ignored even in 10 years’ time. What about hydrocarbons? If there are discoveries in this part of the ocean in the region of the archipelago, what is to stop the Mauritian Government issuing licences for exploration of hydrocarbons? In 10 years’ time, when many of us will not be here, we may look back and say: “What on earth did this Government do to take away those vital protections?”

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I am very impressed by the noble Lord’s speech. Can he tell us what proportion of the resources of the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy are currently deployed in the Indian Ocean protecting the area?

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

I had sat down, but I am perfectly happy to say that the UK Government take their responsibilities incredibly seriously. As I mentioned, the OTs contain 92% of our biodiversity. I cannot think of one example where the UK Government have not stepped up to honour their responsibilities and put in place every form of protection.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I remind my noble friend that not only the British Government but voluntary organisations have been doing this, and it is because of the backing of the British Government that they are carrying this through. Whatever the noble Lord’s views on this issue, he must accept that at the moment this is a very highly protected area, and we are offering it to someone who does not protect anyone.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

We can address those concerns by passing at least one of these amendments.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 3, 31A, 42 and 43 from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, all relate to the marine protected area and the Mauritian intent to establish its own marine protected area. It will be for Mauritius to implement this MPA. However, we welcome the announcement on 3 November by the Mauritian Government of the establishment of the Chagos Archipelago marine protected area, to be known as CAMPA, and particularly their commitment that no commercial fishing will be allowed in any part of the area.

Amendment 31 from the noble Lords, Lord Faulks and Lord Godson, follows a similar vein, seeking to oblige the UK Government to report on the Mauritian MPA. But we have been clear that CAMPA will be for the Mauritian Government to enforce and fund, and the UK will not be providing direct funding to Mauritius to maintain or set up this MPA. Renegotiation of the treaty at this stage is not a practical proposition, as Mauritius has already made this public commitment to the MPA, which covers the protections requested in the noble Lords amendments. We therefore do not think they are necessary. Likewise—

[Lord Deben (Con)]

What the Minister repeats is what the Mauritian Government have promised. I do not in any way attack what they have promised, but they cannot do it. They have not done it anywhere else, so why are we not insisting that we provide the resources for them to do it?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I will come on to that. It is a perfectly legitimate question, although I would urge people not to speak about the Mauritian Government, who have said everything we would all want them to say on these matters. We work with them in a positive light, and we want to work in partnership with them to make sure that the commitments they have made are followed through. The right way for us to do that is in a more positive way. I was about to come on to the question the noble Lord put, but I will gladly give way to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way because the question is related. The Mauritian Government may be saying everything our Government want to hear, but at the moment we have no mechanism whatsoever to enforce it and to ensure that what happens in the future can also be enforced.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble Baroness has amplified the point made earlier by the noble Lord; it is an important point, and I will address it. However, at this stage we are going to reject Amendment 28, which seeks to oblige the UK to publish the proposed arrangements on MPA management and security before entry into force of the treaty. The UK and Mauritius are working together to finalise an arrangement on maritime security to ensure that patrolling, which provides enforcement regarding the future MPA, is maintained after entry into force. We will publish relevant MoUs, including on maritime security, once these are finalised, because we accept that it is vital. Everything that David Miliband said—I thank the noble Lord for reminding us of what he said—we stand by.

Amendments 29 and 30, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Faulks and Lord Godson, seek to ensure that money is set aside in the treaty for the establishment and maintenance of the MPA, and that the Government amend the treaty to allow for non-payment if Mauritius does not protect the marine environment. We agree that the continued protection of the environment is important. As previously set out, the UK is not going to be providing direct funding to Mauritius for this purpose. It is true, however, that the UK-Mauritius Strategic Partnership Framework does provide for technical support and expertise to enable the Mauritian Government to work alongside the environmental partners noble Lords have referred to, including the Zoological Society of London, to make sure that the ongoing protection of the marine environment is secure. This is separate to the treaty.

The noble Baroness asked what we would do if there was a breach. If the UK believes that Mauritius is in breach of its commitments in Article 5, on the environment, it can follow the process set out in Article 14, on settlement of disputes. There is therefore no need to include a further way to settle any disputes over protection of the environment, so we do not accept these amendments.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

Before the Minister concludes, my understanding is that Article 14 does not provide for any recourse. There is no sanction, there is no provision, and it is not a mechanism referred to by anyone who has addressed this issue today.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Article 14 has been agreed as the way to settle disputes. A failure to deliver on environmental commitments could be something we would want to challenge, and the process by which we would do that is included in Article 14. In treaties, we do not need to have a sanction or punishment; the right thing to do is to try to resolve these things so that the impact can be changed. What we want is to make sure that the marine protected area is sustained and that what is environmentally special about this place is secured. That is something we all agree on, but where we differ is that I believe that the mechanisms in the treaty are sufficient to allow for that. What will make the real difference is the quality of the partnership we are able to develop with Mauritius on the work with ZSL and other partners, so that it is equipped to comply with the commitments it is making.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

How are the Government addressing the fundamental fact—which has not been addressed by the Minister, I am afraid—that Mauritius does not have the capacity to police these waters in any way? We are simply in ignorance about all of this.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

She said it, not me. That is why you can buy technical assistance; it is why technical assistance exists. We have a technical assistance partnership with many countries. It is a much better way, working alongside countries to make sure that environmental improvements happen. That is the approach the Government have taken, and it is in the treaty.

I hope that noble Lords will consider withdrawing and not pressing their amendments.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister’s remark to the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, was a little uncalled for.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I was joking.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The Minister may say that she was joking, but it was not a very good joke.

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. In Committee, noble Lords across the Chamber set out their profound concerns about the practical ability of the Mauritian Government to deliver on their commitments. As I said, nobody doubts what they have said and the statements they have made; however, I think we all doubt their ability to enforce this crucial MPA.

I do not need to repeat all the excellent points that have been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, my noble friend Lord Goldsmith and others in their contributions to this debate; they very closely reflect our concerns. Given the critical importance of the ocean around the archipelago for global diversity, we believe that it is necessary to press the Government on this, so that we can have a formal statement of the Government’s expectations of Mauritius under Article 5 of the treaty. We also believe that we need clarity on what steps Ministers will be willing to take to ensure the maintenance of the MPA in perpetuity by the Mauritian Government. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.

Amendments 4 to 6 not moved.

Amendment 7

Moved by

[Lord Callanan]

7: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert
“, subject to subsection (2A).
(2A) Sections 2 to 4 of this Act come into force only when the duties outlined in section (Cost of the Treaty) have been discharged.”

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, we have had lengthy debates on the cost of the treaty. The Government have consistently told us that their estimates tell us that the treaty will cost only £3.4 billion, with payments averaging £101 million per annum over the 99-year life of the treaty. We fundamentally disagree with that.

My noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Altrincham forensically picked apart the Government’s figures in Committee, leaving us in a position of serious and damaging uncertainty. It is unacceptable that we are being asked to approve a Bill enabling a treaty without a clear assessment of the cost of compliance with that treaty. While the Government continue to repeat the figure of £3.4 billion, we now know, using other accountancy mechanisms, that it will cost something approaching £34 billion.

As I said in the debate on a previous group, we are heading towards the highest taxes ever. The Government show no appetite for bringing spending under control, but apparently it is fine to hand over £34 billion to Mauritius for islands we already own. The treaty is a stark example of the Government’s fiscal imprudence. We know that the treaty was not necessary in law and that it was a political choice—and we would never have agreed to it. That is £34 billion the Government could have chosen to spend in other ways. That money should be in the pockets of British taxpayers; it certainly should not be used to fund tax cuts in Mauritius. However, that is the position that Ministers, advised by their international lawyer friends, have put us in.

My Amendment 39 would require the Government to publish a schedule of payments to Mauritius, including the planned dates of those payments, so that independent experts can make their own assessment of the true cost of the treaty to British taxpayers.

The Government, who seem so keen to defend the treaty, must surely think it is good value for money. It follows, therefore, that the Minister should have no problem at all in setting out in full what the schedule of payments is so that we can examine it. I hope the Minister will be able to give that commitment today.

With Amendment 47, we are asking the Government to publish the real cost of this treaty. The details provided in the Explanatory Memorandum which accompanied the publication of the treaty were helpful, and the Minister referred to those details in Committee. But we still have vastly contrasting estimates which show that the treaty could cost as much as 10 times more than the Government claim. We need to see more detail from the Government on these costings to ensure transparency for the hard-working British taxpayer. I beg to move.

18:30

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Callanan, and I particularly support his Amendment 47. I also support Amendment 50 from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.

The scrutiny of this Bill by the House of Lords has been excellent, far better than in the House of Commons. What struck me, as an economist, is that this is a terrible deal. It is not just terrible; it is an absolute shocker. First, I strongly support the £40 million towards a trust fund for the Chagossians. As has been said repeatedly throughout these debates, they have had a terrible deal over many years from all Governments, and I do not begrudge a penny of the £40 million and the arrangements that have been mentioned. I am reassured by what the very capable Minister has said about that during the course of our debates.

Secondly, of course, that is small beer by comparison with the £3.4 billion or £34 billion, as my noble friend Lady Noakes pointed out earlier in the debate, which is the compensation—up to £34 billion of it—for the use of this particular site. Remember that in the original deal in 1965, conducted by Harold Wilson, the then Prime Minister, there was compensation paid. When he said, in effect, to the Mauritian Government, “You can have your independence, but we wish to keep Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands”, he gave them £3 million in compensation. We may sniff at £3 million in 1965, but that is £75 million to £79 million in today’s money, which is very considerable compensation. Therefore, I do not see why any further compensation of billions of pounds should be paid to the Mauritian Government.

Thirdly, the treaty stipulates that the Mauritian Government will get £45 million a year for 25 years in development aid. I have been to Mauritius twice—first in a parliamentary delegation and, secondly, as a private citizen. Mauritius is a hugely successful country. My noble friend Lord Deben may castigate its environmental qualifications, but economically it is extremely successful. It started out over 50 years ago with an agricultural economy as a producer mainly of sugar. It then diversified into business, supplying Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and other sorts of companies in this country. It then went into high-end tourism, which was extremely successful, as I personally experienced on my second visit. In addition to that, it is now a big financial centre. Terry Smith, one of our biggest investment advisers, lives there and runs his entire investment empire from Mauritius, because it is a suitable place to do so—what a lovely place to run an investment company from.

All of this has contributed to Mauritius, along with the Seychelles, being the outstanding economic performer among all the African countries; for some absurd reason, it is bracketed with the African continent. Mauritius and the Seychelles are more successful in terms of GDP per head than Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria—and all the other countries—yet we are giving them development aid. That is absolutely incredible. Money can be spent only once; if it is being spent on this, it is not being spent on the NHS. The Government maintain that they are putting the people of this country first, yet they are spending billions of pounds overseas quite unnecessarily. My noble friend Lord Callanan is absolutely right to seek to have this investigated. In fact, in my view, there is a reason why this particular treaty should not be ratified unless we have gone down that path; we certainly should have much greater transparency around its economic and financial consequences than we have already.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I was tempted to come and do another forensic analysis of the financial aspects of the treaty, but I will restrain myself and just speak briefly in support of all of the amendments in this group.

As we heard from my noble friend Lord Callanan, the Government like to talk about an average of £101 billion a year, in 2025-26 prices, and the total cost being £3.4 billion; that is discounted using the social time preference rate. All these figures ignore the cash that is going to go out of the Treasury’s coffers and into Mauritius’s coffers. All these amendments are trying to do is get the focus back on cash because, at the end of the day, cash is what is important. It is cash that will end up in the Government’s accounts. It is cash that will be leaving our economy.

Amendment 39 would require a schedule of the amounts likely to be paid, which would show no single year in which £101 million will be paid—it will always be more than that—and would show that the total will be not £3.4 billion but closer to £35 billion. It would also show that, in the first five years, the cost will be nearly £900 billion; of course, that is a really big sum of money in the context of a cash-constrained Budget. I note in particular that Amendment 50 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, would ask for that schedule to be updated every five years. This is also very important because inflation expectations can vary. For example, if there were just a small inflation spike, as occurred in 2023, you could change the overall numbers by £1 billion or £1.5 billion; that is a very modest assumption.

It is really important to keep a strong focus on cash and not to talk in these funny money terms, which try to divert attention from how much money is really involved.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 50, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, referred; I am grateful for her support.

This treaty is both a diplomatic measure, when it comes to sovereignty, and a financial relationship; it also adds some obligations to a community whose rights have, as we have acknowledged, been diminished. So it is quite unusual. That is why, at Second Reading, I raised concerns around the financial elements of the treaty, the lack of clarity around how much will be allocated to addressing the rights of the Chagossian community, and the lack of transparency. I acknowledge Letter No. 1, which is appended to the treaty and outlines the figures, but I feel that further clarity is required.

I will not repeat the points I have made previously, but Amendment 50 seeks to address the major concerns around the lack of transparency in the planned implementation of the financial elements of the treaty—including through, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, indicated, a five-yearly update to Parliament on both progress and the contemporaneous situation with regard to the finances.

New subsection (4) in Amendment 50 also introduces what I would consider to be a break clause in the financial relationship outlined in the treaty and in letter one. Earlier in our proceedings, the Minister helpfully said that the treaty could be terminated on two grounds only. The second ground was in reference to the Vienna convention, if there are circumstances which mean the treaty is unimplementable, and the first element is the failure to make payments by the UK.

I say this without suggesting that Mauritius will act in bad faith or has entered into the treaty in bad faith, but there are no mechanisms which would allow us to consider whether Mauritius is also operating to fulfil its obligations, beyond those which have been elevated on diplomatic terms to Prime Minister level for dialogue. If that dispute mechanism has been exhausted, we believe that there should be some formal mechanism by which Parliament should then have the ability to say that the agreement on the finances reached under letter one should require supplementary approval. Indeed, the obligation on the Government of the day would be to come back to Parliament to say that the dispute mechanisms have been exhausted and no agreement has been reached, and therefore that this needs to be brought back. The sums of funds are extremely high; the obligations are serious. Therefore, I hope the Government will consider moving on this element.

Amendment 47, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, is not at all contradictory to this, and if he tests the opinion of the House, we will support him on that amendment. I am also grateful so far for the indications of support for my amendment.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 7, 39, 47, and 50 all relate to financial transparency and parliamentary oversight of expenditure under the treaty.

Amendments 39 and 47, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, seek to require the Government to publish a schedule of payments to Mauritius and a detailed statement of the total cost of the treaty, including the methodology used by the Government Actuary’s Department and the Treasury. These amendments are not necessary, as we published full details of the financial arrangements on the day the treaty was signed, including the finance exchange of letters and the Explanatory Memorandum laid before Parliament.

These documents set out the payment schedule and confirm that the net present value of the treaty is £3.4 billion in today’s money, calculated using the standard Green Book methodology that successive Governments have applied to long-term projects. The average annual payment is £101 million—less than a 0.25% of the defence budget and a fraction of the cost of comparable overseas facilities. This is a sound investment in our national security, and the figures have been confirmed by the Government Actuary’s Department. For these reasons, we reject these amendments.

Amendment 7, which ties commencement of Sections 2 to 4 of the Act to the discharge of duties under Amendment 47, would introduce unnecessary delay in ratification. The Government have already provided the transparency sought by the noble Lord through the published Explanatory Memorandum and accompanying documents, as well as a significant number of Parliamentary Questions and debates in this Chamber and the other place. We therefore do not accept this amendment.

Amendment 50, from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, proposes an ongoing estimates and supply scrutiny process for expenditure under the treaty, including parliamentary approval of future payments and supplementary estimates. The agreement has already undergone scrutiny under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and neither House objected to ratification during the statutory period.

The treaty provides robust mechanisms for dispute resolution under Article 14. It is normal practice for payments under treaties to be made under the prerogative power. While the standard annual estimates process still applies, the introduction of additional parliamentary approval requirements is not necessary and would undermine the certainty and stability that this long-term agreement provides. As I have said on many occasions, the US covers the running costs of the base on Diego Garcia, which are significant, but any expenditure met by this Government will be published in our annual departmental accounts.

18:45

Finally, proposed new subsection (4) in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, would infringe the prerogative power of making and unmaking treaties. It is not wise to impose any immoveable requirements about a hypothetical set of circumstances that might arise in the future. This provision would seem to risk requiring the Government to breach the UK’s obligations under a treaty. It is clearly preferable that all options should be open to a future Government to deal with whatever the future may bring in the UK’s best interests, taking into account all the circumstances that exist at the time. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, this has been brief but fruitful debate and I am grateful to all who have contributed. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, for his Amendment 50, which expresses our shared concerns about the unacceptable uncertainty over the costs of the commitments made under the treaty. If he presses it to a Division, I will support him. We share the noble Lord’s desire to see greater transparency and proper accountability for the Government’s spending under this treaty.

As my noble friend Lady Noakes made clear, we are very concerned about the way the Government have handled the calculation of the costs of the treaty, and we think the British people deserve to know more about the process by which the Government reached the figures that they have published so far. My Amendment 47 would deliver greater transparency by requiring the publication of the methodologies used by the OBR, the Government Actuary’s Department and the Treasury when making their own calculations of the costs of the treaty, as well as requiring the publication of the justification of the methodology used.

We surely cannot proceed with the Bill when there is such uncertainty and debate about the costs and scale of the commitment that the Government have entered into. I therefore give notice of my intention to divide the House on my Amendment 47 when it is called. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 7.

Amendment 7 withdrawn.

Amendment 8

Moved by

[Lord Callanan]

8: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert
“, subject to subsection (2A).
(2A) Sections 2 to 4 of this Act come into force only when the Secretary of State has published a statement setting out that the Secretary of State is satisfied that— (a) the government of Mauritius is not unduly influenced by hostile state actors, and(b) there will be no interference by hostile state actors in the operation of the base.”

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to require the Government to publish a statement stating that they are satisfied that the state of Mauritius is not unduly influenced by hostile state actors and that those actors will not interfere with the operation of the military base. In our increasingly unstable world, where hostile actors are using increasingly unconventional measures to interfere with our activities both at home and abroad, we must be alive to the risks posed by those states.

China’s ambassador to Mauritius has applauded the treaty, and Mauritius has recently released public statements in support of China’s “One China” policy. So could the Minister set out what steps were taken by Ministers and officials to assess the impact of the treaty on the influence that hostile countries will be able to have on the Mauritian Government and the military base? Were any concerns raised with Ministers about the influence of hostile state actors during the negotiations, and have any concerns been raised since?

My Amendment 44 focuses on the notification of the Mauritian Government. I was pleased that we were able to clarify in Committee that the Mauritian Government will not in fact receive prior notice of operations launched from Diego Garcia. Could the Minister go further and confirm that they will not receive prior notification of any other activities at the base, such as maintenance, upgrades, visits by foreign forces and so on? I would be grateful if the Minister could take the opportunity to provide a little more clarity on these points today.

On the wider issue of long-term security, the question we must ask ourselves is: does the Bill actually preserve our long-term security or does it make that security even more uncertain? For example, we have profound concerns about the relationship between Mauritius and China. It is clearly worrying that China’s representatives in Mauritius applauded this deal.

The concerns raised by my noble friend Lord Lilley around the Pelindaba treaty, to which the Mauritian Government is a signatory, have also not been satisfactorily answered by Ministers. The Minister was very cautious, perhaps understandably so, in the language he used in Committee, but we welcome his assurance that the Diego Garcia military base will continue to operate as it does now under the new treaty. However, that does not explain how Mauritius could fulfil its obligations under the Pelindaba treaty.

I do not want to push the Minister any further to put sensitive information in the public domain, but any way in which he can go further to reassure us that the operational capacities of the base will remain completely unchanged under the treaty would be welcomed by the House—particularly by noble Lords on this side.

I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for her amendment. It raises the valid question of the UK’s ability to shape developments on the Chagos Islands beyond Diego Garcia where those activities have defence and security implications. This is an important question, and I hope that the Minister can address it in his reply. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will refer briefly to my Amendments 17 and 49. I tabled one of them in Committee and want to probe a little further on some of the questions to which I did not get satisfactory answers.

What can we do, how do we know and what can the Government do if a country leases an island ostensibly for a non-security or defence purpose but then gradually introduces security and defence functions from Mauritius? In other words, what power do we have over what Mauritius does to the islands once we have given up our capacity other than for Diego Garcia?

Turning to the deployment of security and defence personnel on islands on the Chagos Archipelago beyond Diego Garcia, what UK approval is required? I have raised this before, but I want to know the detail. Given the announcement on 12 September that India had paid Mauritius to secure a defence presence on a Chagos island, would the Minister please tell the House today whether the Republic of Mauritius asked the UK Government ahead of doing that deal with India? If they did not bother to ask, this provides a good reason for not ratifying the treaty at this stage. If the Republic of Mauritius sought UK approval and it was given, why did the UK Government agree? Surely it was completely inappropriate for the Republic of Mauritius to enter deals on what will happen to the islands in the future when the UK Parliament had not yet agreed to the transfer of sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, as the treaty is still not ratified. Many of us in this place hope that it never will be.

I have no intention of moving my amendments to a vote. I would just welcome the Minister’s response on those two points.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for being absent for my amendments in the first group. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hannan for moving them on my behalf with, I am sure, greater elegance than I would have been able to bring. Were I a believer in conspiracy theories, I would imagine that President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer had got together to prevent me from returning to this House, but I am sure that they both have more serious issues, given their lack of popularity in their respective countries, than dealing with me.

My Amendment 14 seeks for the Government to negotiate guarantees from the Government of Mauritius that Mauritius will not enforce its duties under the Pelindaba treaty on the base of Diego Garcia and to ensure that, if it were to do so, the sovereignty of the base would revert to the UK. The Pelindaba treaty seems pretty clear that it excludes the use of any part of any African country. Mauritius counts itself as an African country. When it takes sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago, which we count as part of Africa, it will preclude any of those countries from having any nuclear weapons or armaments on that territory. It would therefore be very difficult, on a simple reading of the Pelindaba treaty, for us to use that for our nuclear submarines or for any aircraft carrying nuclear weapons.

The Mauritius treaty, as it is written, says:

“Each party confirms that none of its existing international obligations or arrangements now in force or effect between it and any third party is in conflict with the provisions of this Agreement”.


If that means that the parties to the agreement intend to ignore any other agreements that they have that may conflict with this, that is all right with me, but the trouble is that it then goes on to say,

“nothing in this Agreement shall affect the status of existing international obligations or arrangements except as expressly provided for in this Agreement”.

That would appear to suggest that nothing in this agreement will override the Pelindaba treaty unless it is expressly stated in this agreement. It is not expressly stated.

I have every confidence in the two Ministers’ patriotism and that they would put the defence of this country manifestly above other minor considerations. I am sure that if it was left to them, we could rely on all this, and I could sit down and not pursue the argument further. But we know that this Government say that their highest priority is international law. If they are now saying that they are prepared to ignore legal agreements and enter into agreements with countries expressly on the basis that they ignore international agreements into which they have entered, we are in a difficult position. I notice the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, is in his place. Perhaps he has come especially to give us assurances that he will not, in this instance, express the supremacy of international law, and that ultimately the sovereignty and independence of this country, its military defence and its alliance with the United States take priority over those matters. Now, if we can have that assurance, that is fine by me.

I appreciate that here we are dealing with very sensitive matters, and I do not expect the Minister to go into fine detail, but I would like the Government to give me greater assurance than I get from reading the treaty that the Pelindaba treaty is not going, at some future stage, to be cited by Mauritius as a reason why we cannot use nuclear-powered vessels or nuclear-equipped weapons, armaments and aircraft from the base. Unless we have that assurance, we must be rather worried.

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, was detained in France so I was not able to speak to my first amendment, Amendment 20, but I shall speak to my Amendment 21 and I support all the others in this group. Amendment 21 basically seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State consults the UK’s AUKUS partners on the transfer of the sovereignty of the Diego Garcia base and that we get the written approval of the Governments of Australia and the USA and the opinions of the senior naval staff of all three partners.

AUKUS is central to the strategic defence review. Secretary of State John Healey states in the foreword to the SDR that

“the AUKUS programme … will allow us to grow our nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet to up to 12. This will reinforce our Continuous at Sea Deterrent … and position the UK to deliver the AUKUS partnership with the US and Australia”.

There have been a number of notable naval critics; indeed, one of them, the noble Lord, Admiral Lord West of Spithead, on the Government’s Benches, a former First Sea Lord and Security Minister, warned:

“The Government may genuinely believe that the base’s long-term future is ‘more secure under the agreement than without it’. But … How can the base–which serves as an indispensable naval, air, and intelligence asset–be more secure under the sovereignty of another nation, rather than under our own?”


In November last year, retired Rear-Admiral Chris Parry criticised the Government’s deal to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos to Mauritius. He described the decision as “the biggest strategic mistake” he has seen in his lifetime. In February last year, Commander Peters, a retired Royal Navy officer who led British forces at the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia said that the base was currently “easily defended”, but:

“If the outer islands are under Mauritian control, China could quite happily start redeveloping them and installing all sorts of spying equipment that I think would affect the security of Diego Garcia”.

19:00

I will not go on to talk about the Pelindaba treaty because that has been well covered by my noble friend Lord Lilley, but I will just ask: how can nuclear submarines or aircraft carrying nuclear explosive devices use Diego Garcia without compromising that treaty? This is a perfect storm of twofold danger: either international pressure—infinitely more pressure than the advisory opinions of a UN board on which the UK has a veto—is brought to bear to prohibit AUKUS partners from using Diego Garcia for operations, which in essence removes Diego Garcia from the AUKUS programme; or foreign adversaries, such as Russia, Iran or China, use this new circumstance of us using or housing nuclear weapons in Diego Garcia as justification to thwart the Pelindaba Treaty and install, station or transport their own nuclear weapons across the African continent. For example, South Africa is a strong ally of Russia, Iran and China through the BRICS partnership and, this week, those various countries are conducting a significant joint naval exercise.

The implications on maritime and nuclear security in the context of these dangerous and alarming concerns, coupled with a rapidly changing geopolitical space, cannot be overstated. For this reason, my amendment stipulates that the Secretary of State must bring a report to Parliament that contains the opinions of the naval staff of all three AUKUS partners.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Callanan on the amendments in this group. I raised specific concerns about defence and security in Committee, and I have considerable sympathy with the remarks of my noble friends Lord Lilley and Lord Leicester on their amendments. I accept that the Minister has acted in good faith in repeating the advice that he has been given.

After the Committee debate on these defence and security issues, I read Hansard and the Pelindaba treaty with care. It seems that, as my noble friend Lord Lilley indicated, once UK sovereignty over the base is relinquished in consequence of this treaty, that sovereignty transmits to Mauritius and the base is then subject to whatever international agreements Mauritius has entered into. There are restrictive consequences for the base from the Pelindaba treaty, but my concern is slightly broader than that of my noble friend Lord Lilley. If, in the eyes of the other signatories to the Pelindaba treaty, Mauritius is deemed to be in breach, all the other signatories have a locus to raise an objection and deploy international law. That cannot be addressed unless this treaty is renegotiated to retain sovereignty of the base in the hands of the UK, and I wish to place on the record that that is my opinion and understanding of the position.

The Minister rightly does not wish to be drawn into discussing sensitive operational issues relative to the base, and I agree with that. However, before stage 3, I ask him to ask his officials to draft him a letter to be placed in the Library, explaining how the renunciation of sovereignty of the base by the UK and the acquisition of that sovereignty by Mauritius, then governed by the Pelindaba treaty, is compatible with free and unrestricted usage of the base by the US, the UK and our allies.

The Minister has been placed in an impossible position by his Prime Minister: this treaty was negotiated on a basis far removed from the harsh reality of the world we live in. Defence and security seem to have become incidental sacrifices to the worship at the high altar of heady diplomacy and international jurisprudence. It should never have proceeded as it did and, for that, I do not blame either of the Ministers sitting opposite, but I want the Minister to explain how the Government will fix it.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I wish to make some comments on Amendment 22 in my name, and I will seek not to transgress my time in relation to this one.

In Committee, the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Callanan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, pointed out the difficulty arising from the fact that while the Mauritius treaty makes provision for the leasing of Diego Garcia by the United Kingdom, this does not change the fact that in the event that the Mauritius treaty is ratified, Diego Garcia would come under the sovereignty of Mauritius.

This is problematic for two reasons at least. First, the Republic of Mauritius is a signatory to the Pelindaba treaty, which means that no nuclear weapons can be held in the territory over which it is sovereign. Secondly, Article 7 of the Mauritius treaty expressly states:

“Each Party confirms that none of its existing international obligations or arrangements now in force or effect between it and any third party is in conflict with the provisions of this Agreement, and that nothing in this Agreement shall affect the status of existing international obligations or arrangements except as expressly provided for in this Agreement”.


Can the Minister confirm—I know the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, has already made reference to this—that the Government have discussed this matter in its entirety with the Government of the United States and that they have confirmation from the US that they have secured their solemn pledge that no nuclear submarines or other nuclear weapons will be able to be taken to Diego Garcia if sovereignty is transferred?

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on that point. But I very gently say that while of course he must not discuss operational matters, this cannot be pushed as an excuse for dodging questions about compliance with international law. Any attempt to deploy that stratagem, to the point of avoiding the demonstration of compliance with international law when non-compliance is feared, would form a deeply troubling precedent.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to get up for the first time on Report and address your Lordships on this important group dealing with security matters. I will try to come to some of the points that have been raised.

I will come to the point about the letter that the noble Baroness raised, but I will start with the challenge that she put at the end to explain how the Government are dealing with the position on the treaty from a security point of view. This answers some of the questions that have been asked, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and I will not go into some of the operational points that have been made by him and others. However, on the security matters, I can say that if your Lordships look at the expressions of support for the security aspects of this treaty, all our major international allies and partners have supported the security arrangements. That is a fairly significant point for us to make and a fairly important point for the House to recognise.

To answer the noble Baroness, the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and the noble Earl, Lord Leicester: President Trump expressed support for the Diego Garcia arrangements within the treaty. US Secretary Hegseth said:

“Diego Garcia is a vital military base for the US. The UK’s (very important) deal with Mauritius secures the operational capabilities of the base and key US national security interests in the region. We are confident the base is protected for many years ahead”.


That was not me but the US.

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

What is the US paying Britain for the lease? It is pretty clear why the Americans are supporting this: they are not having to shell out £34 billion.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The US pays for the operations at the base and has done for many years. I say to the noble Earl that it is a fairly important policy that the Government have secured this to ensure the security of the base over the coming decades. I will come to AUKUS in a minute, but the noble Earl, the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and other noble Lords have asked in their amendments how the treaty arrangements protect the security of the base. All I am doing is reading out what our crucial allies are saying about it. I am saying what they are saying about it. They are paying for the operation of the base. We have secured the future of the base, and they are supporting it. Secretary Rubio came out and supported the base as well.

People ask me how we have secured it—this is the challenge the noble Baroness put to me—and how we have ensured that we have secured the future of the base. We have secured it by ensuring that our major allies support it. I can only imagine what the noble Earl would say if I could not read out quotes from the US supporting what we are doing. The Five Eyes have all supported it. Of the AUKUS partners, Australia supports it as well as the US. Canada, Japan, Korea and India have supported it. I think that is an important position for the Government to be in. That is the context within which all the amendments should be considered.

I do not question the desire of noble Lords in their amendments to challenge the Government and to understand how effectively we have done that. All I am arguing before your Lordships is that, in the context of the treaty, the future of the base is secured. That is a fairly important statement for the Government to be able to make. I will come to the Pelindaba treaty when I come to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, and address the specifics that the noble Baroness raised.

Amendment 8 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, requests a statement from the Secretary of State on base security. The treaty has robust security provisions to protect the base, including full operational control of Diego Garcia, full UK control over the presence of foreign security forces across the archipelago and an effective veto over any construction or development that risks undermining, prejudicing or otherwise interfering with the long-term, secure and effective operation of the base on Diego Garcia. Claims that Mauritius is an unreliable partner and one that cannot be trusted are unfounded. Mauritius is a member of the Commonwealth and a westward-facing country with shared democratic values. Mauritius ranks among the top African nations in governance, human development and innovation. It is a full democracy, a regional leader in human rights and a trusted partner in upholding the rules-based international order, ranking second out of 54 African countries in the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, for tabling Amendment 14 and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for supporting him. The noble Baroness asked me—I hope this helps the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, as well; I always try to be helpful, as noble Lords know—to ask my officials to draft a letter between now and Third Reading. Of course I will do that. I cannot guarantee that the content will necessarily be everything that the noble Baroness or the noble Lord want, but asking for a letter is a perfectly reasonable request. That will be done, and I will place a copy of it in the Library so that it is available to all noble Lords to consider as we move towards Third Reading.

Regarding the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, he knows—he has been a senior Minister and has a distinguished former Prime Minister sitting next to him—that it is very difficult to answer some of the specific questions that noble Lords have posed about certain capabilities. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, recognised that we cannot talk about it. I will say what I can. Amendment 14 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, would require guarantees

“that Mauritius will not enforce its duties under the Pelindaba Treaty on the Base”

and that sovereignty would revert to the UK if it did. As I said in Committee, the Governments of the UK and Mauritius are both satisfied that the Diego Garcia treaty is compatible with their existing obligations under applicable international law. The UK will ensure that all operations on Diego Garcia comply with its existing obligations. The UK is not a party to the Pelindaba treaty, although it is a party to Protocols I and II. The treaty and the Bill will allow the base to operate as it always has. It will not reduce our ability to deploy the full range of advanced military capabilities to and from Diego Garcia in any way.

19:15

As to Amendment 17 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, whose other amendment I will address specifically, Annex 1 of the treaty already clearly states the rights and authorities provided to the UK in the Chagos Archipelago beyond Diego Garcia. It also sets out the security review process that must be undertaken by Mauritius for any maritime installation or land development on the outer islands, as well as the requirement for UK consent for any such development. This grants the UK significant ability to maintain the security and effective operation of the base.

On Amendment 49 and the specific question that the noble Baroness asked me, I can reassure her on India and Mauritius. It is not true that India has paid for a presence on the Chagos Islands—that is not correct. Both have confirmed that it was a renewal of previous agreements on an Indian satellite station on the Mauritius mainland. I hope that answers the specific question that the noble Baroness quite rightly asked and clarifies the point she raised.

The noble Baroness’s Amendment 49 would require parliamentary approval for any future defence or security use of the Chagos Islands by countries other than the UK or the US. The UK can permit access, basing and overflight to non-UK and non-US forces to Diego Garcia, and may need to act quickly in doing so. I would like to reassure and remind the noble Baroness that the treaty also restricts the presence of non-United Kingdom, non-United States or non-Mauritian security forces in the broader archipelago while granting unrestricted access to states operating with UK or US military forces, save in respect of overflight or undersea access, which requires notification to Mauritius—not permission. The amendment would therefore constrain the UK and the US’s ability to co-operate with our allies and conduct military operations and activities on or from Diego Garcia for the protection of the British people.

The treaty also contains robust security provisions including UK control over foreign security forces on the outer islands, whether civilian or military. It is appropriate for this type of decision-making about national security and defence matters to be done by government without needing legislative approval in every case. Normal parliamentary scrutiny of such matters will of course continue.

On the important point made by the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, about seeking consultation with and the approval of AUKUS partners before the treaty comes into force, the Government’s view is that this is unnecessary. Protections were designed and tested at the highest level of the US security establishment. As I have said, the US Administration have already publicly and categorically backed the deal. The agreement has also been publicly welcomed by Australia and all other Five Eyes allies, as well as other key international partners.

The point made by the noble Earl and one or two of his colleagues made me feel as though I was back in the other place, being shouted at about it—“Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?” The Government’s perspective on this is that we have a treaty, we have secured the security of Diego Garcia and we are pleased that our international allies have come out in support of that. We regard the noble Earl’s amendment as unnecessary because our AUKUS partners—Australia and the US—have already expressed support for the treaty and the security arrangements.

I have not spoken to Amendment 44, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, which seeks to prevent the UK notifying Mauritius of the location of sensitive defence equipment before maintenance and upgrades. This is inconsistent with the treaty, which provides that the UK shall have rights of access for maintenance and upgrades of equipment on islands of the Chagos Archipelago beyond Diego Garcia following notification to Mauritius, after advising Mauritius of the location of such equipment.

Similarly, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, I dealt with Amendment 22 in my comments. He is keen to understand the impact of the treaty on the rules-based international order. Again, all I can say is that the treaty has been welcomed by our international partners, including the UN Secretary-General, the Commonwealth Secretary-General and the African Union.

I hope I have answered the points noble Lords have raised, even if not to their total satisfaction. I will ensure that a letter is ready for your Lordships on the important point regarding the Pelindaba treaty before Third Reading and placed in the Library. With that, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comprehensive response. I know that my noble friend Lady Goldie would like to thank him for agreeing to write. We await this letter with interest. He has tremendous respect from across the House for the view he takes on defence; I think he knows that. Nevertheless, I am sure he would be the first to recognise that he has not explained the disparity between what the Pelindaba treaty actually says and what we would like to use the base for. I totally understand that he is not able to go into sensitive matters, but I suspect that what has actually been agreed will for ever remain a mystery. In the meantime, I withdraw my Amendment 8.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

Amendment 9 not moved.

Amendment 10

Moved by

[Lord Lilley]

10: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert
“, subject to subsection (2A).
(2A) Sections 2 to 4 of this Act come into force only when either the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has delivered binding and enforceable judgements on the sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago and judged that the islands should be transferred to Mauritius.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would only allow sections 2 to 4 to come into force if an international Court delivers a binding ruling on sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago and directs that they should be transferred to Mauritius.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I will very briefly talk to my Amendments 10 and 15. When any Administration shift from the original arguments which justified their policy to a new set of arguments, you know that they are moving from evidence-based policy to policy-based evidence. That seems to be what is happening here.

When the original Statement was made about this treaty on 22 May, the Defence Minister in the other place said that if we did not have this treaty, within weeks we would face a binding legal judgment which would in due course render the base inoperable. That was implicitly based on the case before the International Court of Justice, but no mention was made that that ruling was purely advisory, not binding. No mention was made that it was based on General Assembly resolutions, which themselves are not binding and had never been ratified by the Security Council, where, in any case, we have a veto. There was no mention that when we signed up to the ICJ, we specifically precluded it from hearing or being bound by anything relating to disputes between the UK and Commonwealth members, and that subsequently, in 2012, the Cameron Government had tightened that by saying it should be not just present Commonwealth members but present or past Commonwealth members, just in case Mauritius should leave the Commonwealth to pursue its case.

When we mentioned these things, the Government did not say, “Oh yes, you’re quite right: we should have mentioned this earlier”. They simply shifted to talking about the possibility of tribunals in other fora, above all the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea—but that convention cannot address sovereignty. In Committee, the Minister mentioned that in a dispute between Mauritius and the Maldives, in which Britain was not represented, the tribunal assumed on the basis of the ICJ treaty that the boundaries of Mauritius should include Chagos and ruled on that basis. But we have the right in any future dispute that involves us to be represented; above all, we have the right to invoke, I think, amendment 238, which precludes military matters. The Diego Garcia base is above all a military matter. So I do not see where any binding legal judgment could come from, which is why I say that this should not come into force until we see that there is a binding ruling from some international body. If it is going to happen within weeks, that is not going to delay the whole matter very much.

The second issue, which is dealt with in my second amendment, is the reference to any ruling—by whichever international body it is—effectively rendering the base inoperable. When we press on that, we are told that it would mean that countries that supply the base and provide facilities for the base would be able to withdraw those facilities, which in some way would render it inoperable. As to what these facilities are, I presume they get food from neighbouring countries in boats—but nothing much has changed. If countries wished effectively to impose an embargo on the Diego Garcia base, with or without an international resolution from the ICJ or any other tribunal, they could do so. If that would render the base inoperable, the base is much weaker than we thought; and, if they cannot do so, surely there is nothing much to worry about on whether there is a legal ruling.

I do not want to go on at length because I know that noble Lords want to get on to the important business of expressing their views in the Lobbies. But the fundamental basis of this whole treaty has shifted, like the Goodwin Sands—and, like sinking sands everywhere, when they shift, they swallow you up. The Government’s rationale for this whole Bill has been swallowed up by their refusal to just wait and see whether some tribunal would come up with some ruling which would, in some very strange way, render the base inoperable. I find that imaginary but, if it is possible, let us suck it and see.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We have been through this quite a few times, which I suppose is why other noble Lords are not jumping to their feet. Why not wait for a binding ruling? We have discussed previously that that would leave us in a disadvantaged position in terms of negotiation, were we to be negotiating with Mauritius following a binding ruling. The point that there can never be a binding ruling because no tribunal exists that could make one rather begs the question of why the previous Government committed themselves to 11 rounds of negotiations to protect themselves from something that could never happen.

Having said all that, the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, concern the legal rationale and the risks of the agreement, including, in Amendment 10, waiting for a binding ruling on sovereignty over the archipelago. I must again reject this argument and this amendment, given that waiting for such a thing, with the treaty with Mauritius not ratified, would put us in an incredibly weak position. It would risk the future of the base, the delay would be highly dangerous to UK national security, and we are just not going to do it.

We published our legal rationale for the deal on the day that the treaty was signed. The House has dedicated hours to debating that rationale. It has been the subject of two reports by respected committees in this place. The Government have been consistently clear throughout all this that the legal case was compelling and there was no credible alternative for managing the risk, which is why the previous Government undertook so many rounds of negotiation. We are confident that this agreement secures the base from legal threat, protecting UK national security for generations. I hope the noble Lord does not press his amendments to a vote.

19:30

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, the argument that the treaty was necessary because of the advisory judgment of international courts is something that we have debated at length. But, as my noble friend Lord Lilley has consistently demonstrated, the reality is that the Government had a political choice and they could have not entered into the agreement. In the meantime, though, as the hour is getting late, it remains only for me to say that, if my noble friend presses his amendment to a vote, we will support him. Sorry, I spoke in the wrong place there.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for responding to my points. I still do not think she has explained why a delay would weaken our negotiating position when that position has been based on the fact that we would face a binding ruling. If that happens, our negotiating position is no worse, and if it does not happen, it is much stronger. Still, I do not want to cause a vote if that is going to delay more important votes where we might win.

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

Amendments 11 to 18 not moved.

Amendment 19

Moved by

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

19: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert
“, subject to subsection (2A).
(2A) Sections 2 to 4 of this Act come into force only when the conditions in section (Referendum (No. 2)) have been met.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ties the commencement of the provisions in the Act to the conditions of the referendum on the Chagossian community in another amendment by Lord Purvis of Tweed.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I wish to test the opinion of the House.

19:32

Division 2

Amendment 19 agreed.

Ayes: 210

Noes: 131

The Division result was initially reported as Contents 210; Not-Contents 132.

See col. 1033 for explanation of mistake in voting figures.

19:43

Amendments 20 to 31A not moved.

Amendment 32

Moved by

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee]

32: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Referendum(1) The Secretary of State must arrange a referendum on whether the British Indian Ocean Territory should—(a) remain a British Overseas Territory, or(b) be transferred to and become the sovereign territory of the Republic of Mauritius.(2) No transfer of sovereignty may take place under section 2 unless the number of Chagossians voting to transfer the islands to Mauritius exceeds those of the Chagossians that wish to remain a British Overseas Territory.(3) The franchise for the referendum must consist of persons entitled to citizenship under section 4 who are over 18 years of age, wherever they are resident.(4) The Secretary of State must ensure that eligible persons resident outside the United Kingdom are able to participate in the referendum.(5) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement of the result of the referendum as soon as reasonably practicable after it has been held.”

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I beg to move.

19:44

Division 3

Amendment 32 disagreed.

Ayes: 168

Noes: 178

Amendment 33

Moved by

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

33: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Referendum (No. 2)(1) Subsections (2) to (6) are the conditions of this section for the purposes of section 1(2A).(2) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must conduct a referendum of the Chagossian community.(3) The referendum must be conducted in writing and in a format and language as considered appropriate by the Secretary of State to be satisfied the response will be valid.(4) The question to be put to the Chagossian community in the referendum is stated in subsection (5).(5) The question is—“In recognising the international principals of self-determination, do you agree that the implementation of the Treaty agreed between the United Kingdom and Mauritius must guarantee the rights of Chagossians in a legal right—(a) of resettlement on the Islands of the Chagos Archipelago other than Diego Garcia,(b) of participation in the operation in and opportunities of working in and visiting Diego Garcia, and(c) to be involved in decision making on the operation of the Trust Fund for the benefit of the Chagossian Community?”(6) Within 30 days of the result of the referendum the Secretary of State must lay a statement before both Houses of Parliament setting out how they intend to respond to the referendum.(7) In this section, “Chagossian community” means those Chagossians identified by the Secretary of State who will be impacted by the Act.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to hold a written referendum of the Chagossian community within six months of Royal Assent on whether the implementation of the UK–Mauritius Treaty adequately guarantees their rights to resettlement, consultation, and participation in decision-making, and to lay a statement before Parliament setting out the Government’s response to the result.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the Government indicated previously that if Amendment 19 passed, they would consider this to be consequential. My understanding is that that continues to be the position, but I must still move the amendment formally.

Amendment 33 agreed.

Clause 5: Further provision: Orders in Council

Amendment 34

Moved by

[Lord Lansley]

34: Clause 5, page 3, line 39, at end insert—
“(2A) An Order under this section which amends, repeals or revokes an Act may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, there are four amendments in this group, and they are all my amendments, so I hope I will not need to detain the House for a very long time. However, it is rather important, as this group relates to the scrutiny that is to be attached to the powers which are used in the continuing jurisdiction that this country will exercise in Diego Garcia. They are powers that are established under the royal prerogative, but the question that Amendments 34, 35 and 36 relate to is the extent of parliamentary scrutiny in the exercise of those powers.

Noble Lords may recall that, although these amendments were tabled in Committee and they were tabled in order to give effect to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the intention is very straightforward. It is that Orders in Council which exercise Henry VIII powers—that is, amending or repealing primary statutes—should be subject to an affirmative resolution procedure, and that all other Orders should be subject to a negative resolution procedure, rather than, as proposed by the Bill, no parliamentary procedure at all. In Committee, the Minister said:

“We are still considering these suggestions and we will return to them on Report”.—[Official Report, 25/11/25; col. 1303.]

So we are returning to them on Report by virtue of these amendments tabled.

The Minister and I have not had an opportunity for a discussion of this issue since Committee, but I am grateful for the copy of the letter by which the Government responded on 23 December to the DPRRC. Noble Lords will also recall a letter of 22 December, which is relevant, and which was sent to noble Lords participating in Committee. The Government have not accepted the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee, so I ask the House to include the recommended level of parliamentary scrutiny, and Amendments 34 and 36 would achieve that.

The Government’s arguments are that the Bill provides for the continuation of the laws in Diego Garcia and that processes for making laws in the military base area should be the same as those applying previously—in short, maintaining the status quo. However, the status quo has changed; we are not in the status quo.

The treaty with Mauritius provides that sovereignty is no longer with this country. Sovereignty, including in Diego Garcia, by virtue of the treaty, is with Mauritius, as we have heard. So, in so far as the prerogative powers were previously derived from that sovereignty, that no longer applies.

The Minister’s letters refer to Cyprus as a precedent, but the Cyprus treaty and the Cyprus Act 1960 provide that the United Kingdom’s sovereignty is continued in relation to the two sovereign base areas—the clue is in the title. As we heard in an earlier debate, my noble friend Lady Goldie would have preferred that we retain sovereignty in Diego Garcia, but that has not happened.

20:00

Section 3(5) of the Cyprus Act 1960 states:

“An Order in Council under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament”.

In so far as the Cyprus Act is a precedent, it is therefore supportive of the concept of parliamentary scrutiny of Orders in Council.

On 23 December, the Minister said the following to the Delegated Powers Committee:

“The operation of the base … and the treaty as a whole, are in the realm of international relations, defence and security, and given that subject matter, it is appropriate for those instruments to be subject to no parliamentary procedure”.

I have to say that I know of no basis for such a blanket assertion. Powers under statute relating to the Armed Forces—for example, the Armed Forces Act 2006—are subject to parliamentary procedures, including the affirmative procedure where rights and offences are involved.

The Minister’s letters of 22 and 23 December are also, I am afraid, in apparent contradiction. The letter of 22 December says that prerogative Orders in Council are not statutory instruments. The letter of 23 December, in response to the Delegated Powers Committee, says the following of the Orders in Council:

“They will, of course, be statutory instruments which will be registered and published in the usual way”.

It is the Delegated Powers Committee letter which is incorrect. Prerogative orders are not statutory instruments, but if they are to be published and registered, that of course would be welcome.

My purpose in this debate is to enable us to give greater clarity and reduce the legal risk arising from the exceptional structure of powers generated by the Bill by making it clear both that Parliament has approved the use of the prerogative powers and that their future use will be subject to appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. First, I accept that the treaty, while removing sovereignty, maintains the UK’s jurisdiction in Diego Garcia. It is therefore not a foreign jurisdiction and the Bill correctly disapplies the provisions of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act 1890. Given that the powers are established under an international treaty, which is itself made under a prerogative power, the source of the powers used in Diego Garcia can correctly be regarded as continuing to be prerogative powers. The Orders in Council will therefore be prerogative orders, not statutory orders.

However, in this exceptional case, where the continuation of the prerogative powers is confirmed by this statute, it is in my view consistent with the best constitutional position that the orders may be subject to parliamentary scrutiny while not being regarded as statutory instruments under the terms of the 1946 Statutory Instruments Act. That is the position in the Bill, and it provides for a clear constitutional narrative particular to the circumstances the Bill will give rise to. It will be stronger than simply relying on the proposition that Diego Garcia is just like another British Overseas Territory, when it is clearly not, because of the recognition of Mauritius’ sovereignty in relation to Diego Garcia. Nor is it analogous to the sovereign base areas in Cyprus, as I explained.

As I have already mentioned, Amendment 37 relates to the disapplication of the Statutory Instruments Act. For the reasons I have just explained, I accept that the orders will not fall under that Act, but Amendments 34, 35 and 36 would ensure that the orders made are subject to parliamentary scrutiny in the form in which the Delegated Powers Committee recommended— Henry VIII powers being subject to an affirmative procedure, and any other orders being subject to a negative resolution procedure.

We have not had a debate in Committee. May I suggest that this debate might well fill that space? If it were the Minister’s intention to reconsider the issue at Third Reading, even in the couple of days available to us, I would welcome that. There is a position which is not that recommended by the Delegated Powers Committee but which I think would also be acceptable to the House—namely that, when used, Henry VIII powers should be subject to the affirmative procedure but that any other Orders in Council should be laid before Parliament rather than necessarily subject to any parliamentary procedure for the purpose.

I hope that the Minister will reply by suggesting that we come back to this at Third Reading with a view to considering that proposal as well as the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee, which are in Amendments 34, 35 and 36. I hope that I might get that positive response but, subject to that, I ask the House to consider, if necessary, supporting the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee in Amendment 34 and the consequential Amendments 35 and 36. For the moment, I beg to move.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for the amendments in this group. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have had some interesting debates on the future of the prerogative. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has made its recommendations on this point, and I understand why my noble friend has therefore tabled his amendment. The Constitution Committee has drawn Clause 5 to the attention of the House but fell short of matching the recommendations made by the DPRRC. We on the Opposition Front Bench have read carefully the Government’s response to the DPRRC’s report, which we believe has some merit. That said, we will not seek to oppose my noble friend should he choose to divide the House on this matter.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 34 to 37 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, seek to amend Clause 5 of the Bill. I appreciate that Amendments 34 to 36 would implement the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The Government have carefully considered the committee’s report on the Bill and responded to it but, on this occasion, we do not accept those recommendations.

I note what the noble Lord said about Third Reading. I am grateful to him for his detailed engagement with these provisions. I want to clarify one point about which noble Lords might not be entirely clear. The effect of the Bill is that there will be two powers. One is the prerogative power to legislate for Diego Garcia only, which is preserved under Clause 3. We seem to have some agreement on that point. The other power is a new statutory power conferred by Clause 5. Orders in Council made under Clause 5 will be statutory instruments. The Bill currently provides that those will be subject to the negative procedure where they amend primary legislation, and otherwise to no procedure. That is not because we argue that they are prerogative orders but because it is appropriate given their subject matter.

So far as the power to amend primary legislation is concerned, we have been clear that the negative procedure is appropriate, given that the changes to be made to legislation will in very large part be technical in nature. The purpose of the power is to ensure that the Government can bring the domestic statute book into conformity with both the purpose and effect of the treaty, making consequential changes as necessary. That works hand in hand with Clause 3, which provides a default position of continuity of the law. The Clause 5 powers will be necessary to make amendments to that law to adapt it to the treaty and the new status of Diego Garcia. This is not just about the law of Diego Garcia; UK legislation which refers to BIOT needs to be brought into line.

Applying the negative procedure here is consistent with the Cyprus Act 1960, which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to. Section 3 of the Cyprus Act also provides for the law of the UK in relation to Cyprus or the sovereign base areas to continue and for statutory Orders in Council to be made under the negative procedure to make further adaptations as required.

The Hong Kong Act 1985 also provides for the negative procedure for statutory Orders in Council under Schedule 3, amending the law of the UK or of other British possessions.

The Government’s position is that it is appropriate that no procedure applies when the Clause 5 power is used other than to amend primary legislation. The operation of the base on Diego Garcia and the treaty as a whole are in the realm of international relations, defence and security, as the noble Lord said. Given the subject matter, it is appropriate for those instruments to be subject to no parliamentary procedure.

There will, of course, be statutory instruments, which will be registered and published in the usual way. It is not uncommon for Orders in Council which relate to the overseas territories to have no procedure attached to them. I am happy, and I think it would be a good idea, to continue to discuss this with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, ahead of Third Reading. I would be very happy to do that. I hope he withdraws his amendment.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I am grateful for that response, and in order not to delay the House, if I may, I will leave it at that point. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 34 and to return to this, if necessary, at Third Reading.

Amendment 34 withdrawn.

Amendments 35 to 46 not moved.

Amendment 47

Moved by

[Lord Callanan]

47: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Cost of the TreatyThe Secretary of State must publish a statement setting out— (a) the total real terms cost of payments to be made to Mauritius under the Treaty; (b) the full methodology and justification of the discount mechanism used to calculate the total cost;(c) the methodology used to calculate the total cost of the Treaty by—(i) the Office for Budget Responsibility,(ii) the Government Actuary’s Department, and(iii) the Treasury.”

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I wish to test the opinion of the House.

20:13

Division 4

Amendment 47 agreed.

Ayes: 194

Noes: 130

20:23

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I have to inform the House that, in Division No. 2, the number voting Not-Content was 131, not 132, but the result is not affected.

Amendments 48 and 49 not moved.

Amendment 50

Moved by

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

50: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Parliamentary oversight and approval of expenditure(1) The Secretary of State must, within the first financial year following the day on which this Act is passed, lay before the House of Commons, for its approval, an estimate of the expenditure that is anticipated to be incurred by the Government of the United Kingdom in connection with the commitments made under the terms of the Treaty, including, but not limited to—(a) any payments made or to be made, or financial commitments entered into, with the government of the Republic of Mauritius in accordance with the Treaty; and(b) the costs associated with the continued administration, maintenance, and operation of Diego Garcia.(2) In each fifth successive financial year after the first financial year as set out above, the Secretary of State must lay an estimate in accordance with subsection (1). (3) If the payments incurred by the Government of the United Kingdom are greater than those anticipated in the estimate specified in subsection (1) or (2), the Secretary of State must lay before the House of Commons, for its approval, a supplementary estimate.(4) If at any stage during the operation of the Treaty the Secretary of State presents to the House of Commons a report that the Republic of Mauritius has, in his or her view, not honoured the provisions of the Treaty they have undertaken to honour, and that the United Kingdom has presented to the Joint Commission a reasoned case that it believes the Republic of Mauritius has not honoured the provisions of the Treaty, and that the process in Article 14 of the Treaty has been exhausted, the Secretary of State must lay before the House of Commons, for its approval, a resolution to cease payments in connection with the Treaty.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment provides for an estimates and supply scrutiny process for expenditure to be incurred by the UK Government as a result of the Treaty and the UK’s continued involvement in Diego Garcia.

20:24

Division 5

Amendment 50 agreed.

Ayes: 131

Noes: 127

20:34

Amendment 51

Moved by

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

51: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“UK–Mauritius Inter-parliamentary Committee(1) On the day on which this Act is passed, a Minister of the Crown must engage with the government of the Republic of Mauritius with a view to establishing a UK-Mauritius Inter-parliamentary Committee to consider the implementation and operation of the Treaty.(2) In undertaking the engagement required by subsection (1), the Minister of the Crown must make representations that—(a) the composition of the Inter-parliamentary Committee should reflect equal representation from the parliaments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Mauritius,(b) its chair should rotate on a timetable agreed by the Committee between the United Kingdom Parliament and the parliament of Mauritius, and(c) its purpose should be to promote mutual understanding of the provisions of the Treaty through dialogue and debate, including consideration of the operation of the Joint Commission established under Article 12 of the Treaty.(3) The Minister of the Crown must further propose that the Inter-parliamentary Committee’s responsibilities include—(a) monitoring and assessing the implementation and operation of the Treaty via dialogue and mutual understanding;(b) evaluating the recognition and protection of Chagossian rights, including but not limited to—(i) access to compensation, resettlement, or other forms of support;(ii) ongoing involvement and participation in any decision which impacts on the Chagossian community;(c) considering the welfare, integration, and general needs of Chagossians residing in the United Kingdom; and(d) reviewing the beneficial impact of the financial arrangements made under the Treaty, including those supporting resettlement, welfare, or the development of the Chagossian community.(4) If the Inter-parliamentary Committee described in subsection (1) is established, within five years of the commencement of the Treaty the Inter-parliamentary Committee must be invited to conduct a review of the operation and effectiveness of the Treaty arrangements. (5) The Minister of the Crown must make reasonable provision for the operation of the Committee.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Government to seek the establishment of a UK–Mauritius Inter-parliamentary Committee to oversee and review the implementation of the Treaty, with particular regard to parliamentary scrutiny, the protection of Chagossian rights, and the operation of related governance and financial arrangements.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 51 addresses an issue that I raised in Committee: that there should be an ongoing representation of the Chagossian community, including its members living in the UK as joint nationals, and a means by which the parliaments of the UK and Mauritius can have dialogue on the operation and implementation of the treaty.

I set out the justification for that in Committee, so I do not need to repeat any of those comments and do not wish to detain the House any further. I was grateful to both Minister Doughty and the Minister in this House for engaging in discussions with me since Committee. Ministers have been very open, and I appreciate that. I hope that that openness will encourage them to give supportive words at the Dispatch Box for this proposal, so I am keen to hear what the Minister has to say. I am very happy to continue having discussions on this issue and to hear from the Government. I do not need to say anything else at this stage. I beg to move.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has chosen to re-table amendments on an inter-parliamentary committee to monitor and assess the implementation and operation of the treaty. We have been seriously concerned about the ongoing assessment of the success of the treaty, and this is just one mechanism that could be used to deliver that ongoing monitoring.

We are pleased that we have so far secured a number of significant concessions from the Government on the detail of how the treaty’s implementation will be monitored, including, for example, the release of much more detailed information about the contact group and how it operates. I am pleased also that, towards the end of last year, the Government released some further information about the trust fund board. We have heard today about the legislation in Mauritius on the establishment of that trust fund board, which is all very positive. These are important organisations that will have a role in holding both the UK and Mauritius to account as the treaty is implemented.

Delivering greater clarity during the progress of the Bill in your Lordships’ House shows the impact that parliamentary scrutiny can have. So, in light of those facts and the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I would be grateful if the Minister, when she replies, can confirm what further opportunities Parliament will have to discuss and scrutinise the implementation of the treaty. As I said before, I do not believe that it bodes well that the Government refused to allow a substantive Motion in the other place on the treaty under the CRaG procedures, so can she give the House a cast-iron assurance that Parliament will be granted the opportunity to debate the implementation of the treaty at regular intervals, should it be implemented?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 51 and 54, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, concern the establishment of a UK-Mauritius inter-parliamentary committee to oversee the implementation and operation of the treaty. I would love to please the noble Lord—I am happy to continue talking to him—but I am afraid that I will disappoint him this evening.

Amendment 51 seeks to require the Government to engage with Mauritius to create a committee, with equal representation from both parliaments and the purpose of promoting mutual understanding of the provisions of the treaty. The committee would have responsibilities, including monitoring the implementation of the treaty and its impact on Chagossians. Amendment 54 ties the commencement of the Act to the establishment of this committee.

I completely recognise that the intention behind the amendments is to promote dialogue and scrutiny. However, Mauritius’s agreement to it could not be guaranteed, and the treaty itself makes no provision for an inter-parliamentary committee. Indeed, there would seem to be some potential for overlap—perhaps even conflict—between the proposed role of the committee and that of the joint commission under the treaty. Furthermore, introducing this requirement would at least delay, if not prevent, the ratification and implementation of an agreement that is vital for our national security.

There are numerous committees across the two Houses that can—and, I am sure, will—undertake periodic inquiries into the operation of the treaty. This joint committee could overlap with the work of these Select Committees—and that would not be right. We have Select Committees for a purpose, and it is for them to scrutinise the work of departments, so I do not believe that we should try to replicate that.

I know that the noble Lord feels passionately about supporting Chagossians. He has told me that and I commend him on it, but I do not think a joint committee will increase trust among the Chagossian community. As mentioned on earlier groupings, this Government are committed to a relationship with Chagossians built on trust and acknowledgement of the wrongs of the past. There are also elected representatives in the other place who are there to advocate for their constituents, and there are many in this House who also do this.

The agreement has already been subject to extensive scrutiny under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and both Houses have had the opportunity to consider its terms. The treaty also establishes a joint commission under Article 12 to manage its operation, which is the appropriate forum for bilateral engagement. For those reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, for his indication of support, and to the Minister for her reply. I listened carefully to what she said. Of course, the joint commission on the treaty is executive-to-executive level, and I have consistently sought an opportunity for parliamentary dialogue to continue. It is absolutely right that elected Members of Parliament will represent their constituents and their constituents’ interests; indeed, MPs in the Mauritian parliament will do likewise. My ambition is to find a vehicle by which that can be done in a systematic way, not to contradict or to conflict with parliamentary committees but for there to be a parliamentary voice on behalf of the community where our commitment for their rights should be ongoing and not end once this treaty is ratified.

I am grateful for the Minister saying that she is willing to continue to talk. Equally, I understand that that is language not to give any commitment to anything at Third Reading, but I would like to continue the engagement with the noble Lord and the Minister on this, and indeed with other parliamentary vehicles. Because of the lateness of the hour—we have had a very busy Report stage—and notwithstanding the importance of this issue, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in my name.

Amendment 51 withdrawn.

Amendments 52 and 53 not moved.

Clause 6: Commencement and short title

Amendments 54 and 55 not moved.

House adjourned at 8.43 pm.