Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 1 by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. I take it that he was not entirely serious when he dreamt up this particular innovation, which is right at the start of the Bill, whereby the purpose of the Bill should be presented in the way that the opponents of the Bill would find most attractive. It is a novel constitutional idea. In his reasons for the purposes of the Act, he has included only things that obviously he agrees with, but he has not included, for example, that this will secure the base for the UK and the USA for the next hundred years. There are arguments for and against, as there with any piece of legislation, but to think that you should state at the beginning of a Bill that the purpose of the legislation is what the Opposition would like to see enacted is novel. The only parallel I can think of would be if the sundry privatisation measures that were passed by the Thatcher Government had said, “The purpose of this Act is to sell off at knock-down prices the assets of the British people”. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, would have been in favour of that kind of constraint when that legislation was going through. I do not take this as a serious amendment, and I am sure he will not press it to a vote—it might be fun if he did, but we will see anyway.

One part of the noble Lord’s proposed new clause that is contentious—well, a lot of it is contentious—on which I would certainly like to hear more from my noble friends on the Front Bench is paragraph (d), which suggests that the Bill will

“limit the citizenship rights of the Chagossians”.

I do not think the Bill as it stands does that, and I want to be clear about that, but I think it raises an issue which we will come to later in the Bill, which is of concern to a number of us here, about what further rights for the Chagossians are appropriate, given the appalling way in which—we are all agreed—they were treated when they were basically thrown out of their own island.

My specific query, which if my noble friend cannot answer at the moment I would certainly like to hear later on in subsequent amendments, is that I still cannot understand why the military requires the whole of the island of Diego Garcia without any other settlement on it other than what is required for military purposes. I have asked that question of Ministers. The last time I asked my honourable friend Stephen Doughty, the Minister, he answered by saying,

“it is impossible for that to take place”—

that is, to have permanent settlement of Chagossians on Diego Garcia—

“operationally. It is not suitable or appropriate”.

I am very fond of the Minister, but just saying something is not suitable or appropriate, without any further clarification or explanation, is not good enough, as far as I am concerned.

The best I have got so far is to be told that, operationally, it is very difficult if you have civilians alongside the military, and it is much more convenient to the military if they have it all to themselves. In response to that, I can say only that repeatedly, in all parts of the world, including in my former constituency, civilian workers at a base quite happily live adjacent to the base and do a job that is of mutual benefit to the military and the civilian workers.

I think it would be a huge step forward to be able to say to the Chagossians—there may not be many who would want to do it—that those who would really like to settle in the land of their forefathers on Diego Garcia would be able to do that and work at the base or, if necessary, work in other activities as well. So far, I have not had a good argument against that happening, and I hope that at some stage during the passage of this Bill my noble friends can provide me with one.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise in support of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. I think the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was being a little bit unfair on him. He said very clearly that this is an appalling Bill that he wants to stop, and he has an amendment about Clause 1 standing part.

I would like to speak on one point about the Chagossians, which I know we are going to come to later. I agree with the noble Lord 100% on that point. There are quite a few Sri Lankan staff at Diego Garcia and there is no reason why there could not have been put in place some while back a scheme for Chagossians—Chagossians from Mauritius, from the Seychelles, from Crawley, from London—rather than the American airbase employing Sri Lankans. That should be the case. Of course, they did not originally come from Diego Garcia; they lived in some of the islands in the outer archipelago. Diego Garcia, as I understand it, was only sparsely populated historically. That was a very good point and we hope that the Minister will answer it.

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[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Forgive me, but I did not say that I did not know; I was just about to answer that specific question. I was making a point about the inconsistency and—frankly—ludicrousness of the Opposition doing something that, when they were in government, took up a great deal of time and resource, but which they now contend they never, ever needed to do.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Will the Minister give way? We keep hearing that the previous Government negotiated over 11 rounds and went on negotiating, but surely that reveals something about the previous Government’s steadfast determination to secure a good deal. If the Government had not been able to get a deal, would they have eventually signed up to an agreement? I do think they would have done.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

At the risk of jumping further down the rabbit hole with the noble Lord, my point was simply that to contend now that there was never any possibility of any legal jeopardy, as many noble Lords have sought to do today, does not correspond with the fact that the previous Government did enter into negotiations. If there was never a legal risk, why did they do that? That is the point that I am seeking to make, a pretty straightforward point.

The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, asked me about binding judgments and courts; they are fair questions. I believe that I have responded to them previously, but I am happy to go into more detail today, as that is what Committee debates are all about. There are numerous avenues through which Mauritius could pursue a legally binding judgment, including under the dispute provisions of the treaties to which both states are parties or further arbitral—

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[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

What do we mean by existential? We could still have a Diego Garcia—there could be something there. However, it would be existential because, if the operability is compromised, the base as it exists today—it is a unique place and it does things that we do not do anywhere else—would be compromised. To that extent, I suggest that that is an existential threat to the operability of the base.

With that, I hope that noble Lords who have presented their amendments are satisfied. If not, we can of course return to these issues on Report.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Can the Minister answer my point about the UN Security Council and the UK’s ability and right to veto?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We are not saying that this goes to the Security Council. We are saying that there could be further rulings. With respect, that is a bit of a red herring. There could be rulings that affect how we are able to operate on the base. There could be votes at the General Assembly, which the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, explained quite well. He is right; we could veto something at the Security Council, but we do not anticipate that, and that is not the legal threat that we are concerned about. It is a different legal threat.

If there are no further interventions, I respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraw his amendment.