Chagos Islands

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We have been through this in the House several dozen times, but I am happy to take the question again. I invite the noble Lord to consider a situation where we had allowed for the legal processes to continue. The advice that we received was that it was likely that the advisory decision would be followed by a decision to which we would have to adhere. Our view—this is a judgment—is that we would be in a stronger position to negotiate ahead of a binding judgment rather than afterwards. Noble Lords can disagree with that, but it is the reason for our timing. It is also the reason for the 11 rounds of negotiation under the previous Government. It is also true that there are Members opposite and Members in opposition in the other place who know that very well.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am always grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the very careful tone with which she discusses these very sensitive subjects in a non-partisan way, despite obscene provocation to the contrary. I wonder whether she agrees that it is all very well to talk about ICJ rulings being advisory and to laugh them off, but we would not have been in the ICJ without the overwhelming support of the UN General Assembly. If we want the global South, and countries in Africa in particular, to think differently about China and to respect us going forward, we need to respect institutions such as the UN General Assembly.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very clear point. For the record, I am happy to come here and take questions and challenge on this issue—it is important and right that the Government are held to account on it. She made a point about the geopolitics of this, with which I agree. One also needs to think about the practical, day-to-day functioning of a base in the middle of the Indian Ocean and our reliance upon third countries to enable it to function as well as we need it to. There would have been an impact on that, should we have waited for a binding judgment.