Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Callanan and Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, the trust fund set up for the Chagossians is absolutely central to this treaty. Under Article 11, the Mauritians have been given the responsibility for administering the fund, which will be paid for, of course, by the UK. However, we still do not have any clarity on how Mauritius will manage the fund. We seem to have no say in it whatever.

The reality of Mauritius’s past record is also a cause for concern. Since the forced removal of the Chagossians from the archipelago, many Chagossians have lived on Mauritius. As has been pointed out a number of times in the debates so far, in the 1970s the UK Government paid £4 million into a trust fund for the benefit of registered Chagossians. I would be very interested to know the Government’s assessment of whether that trust fund has indeed been a success. Do the Government have any concerns about the way Mauritius has managed that fund before we offer to donate cash for another one? If the Government are concerned about Mauritius’s past actions in this area, what additional assurances have Ministers sought from the Mauritian Government to prevent mismanagement, corruption or failure to properly distribute funds in future?

The domestic reality of this arrangement is also worrying. Many Britons will struggle to understand why we are transferring funds to a foreign Government so that they can manage a trust fund on our behalf. Does this mean that we are transferring funds without proper control over how those moneys are spent? What powers will the UK have under the treaty to ensure that Mauritius is fulfilling its responsibilities? These are all important questions—many Members have raised them in the debates so far—which Ministers should seek to answer, either at the Dispatch Box or in the Bill.

Amendment 17 in my name and Amendments 26 and 78 in the names of my noble friends Lord Lilley and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere relate to the employment of Chagossian citizens on the military base. The treaty makes provision for the employment of Mauritians on the base. We debated issues related to that provision in an earlier group. The treaty, sadly, does not make any provision for the employment of Chagossians on the base. We already know how many Chagossians living on Mauritius feel that they are treated as second-class citizens. Does the Minister agree that Chagossians should have similar protections for their employment on the military base as Mauritians?

Amendment 81, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, is a very simple amendment that would provide for a report on the impact of the treaty on British Indian Ocean Territory citizens. I see no reason why a Minister would refuse to produce that report. The rights of BIOT citizens are, or should be, central to the future of the islands. We need some clarity on this matter. If the Government cannot commit to a report on the impact of the treaty, will the Minister at least give the Committee an assurance that her department will do everything in its power under the terms of the treaty to ensure that BIOT citizens are properly supported by Mauritius?

I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate and the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in this group I will speak to my Amendments 20A, 50A and 81A. I also strongly support Amendment 55 in the name of my noble friend Lord Weir of Ballyholme. As the Minister knows, I have asked several questions about the trust fund, which, as I understand it, will be totally in the control of the Mauritian Government. This brings inherent problems, particularly as those Chagossians living here in the UK are often near or below the poverty line and could well do with access to help and assistance. Amendment 55 seeks to probe the fairness of the payments to Mauritians and Chagossians.

I will go further in saying that the Secretary of State should establish a Chagossian advisory council comprised primarily of individuals of Chagossian descent, including members based here in the UK, Mauritius and Seychelles. This council could then be consulted on all strategic programme and spending decisions relating to the trust fund, ensuring that Chagossian communities are directly involved in shaping priorities and oversight. That would promote transparency. The minutes of the council meetings and any recommendations or advice could also be published annually. That goes further than the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Weir, but I would be obliged to hear from the Minister on this as it would deal with some of the issues around transparency and accountability as well.

On Amendment 20A, I am not going to labour the points raised as we discussed some of this last week in Committee, but I remind the Committee that the current provisions of the treaty do not grant a right for Chagossians to access their homeland. They leave it up to the Mauritian Government as to whether this happens. Article 6 states that the Mauritian Government are

“free to implement a programme of resettlement”.

That falls far short of right to access the islands. That is what this amendment seeks to do.

Amendment 50A concerns the protection of Chagossian identity and birthplace. I tabled this amendment at the request of the Chagossian community here in the UK, including many native islanders who were born on Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and Salomon before their forced removal between 1968 and 1973.

This amendment is not theoretical and it is not precautionary. It responds to a real, current and deeply troubling practice that is already happening, and the Committee needs to be aware of the seriousness of this. We have now seen documentary evidence that Mauritian authorities have begun issuing birth certificates to Chagossians in which the true place of birth has been removed and replaced with Mauritius. In each case, the names of islands such as Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos or Salomon have been deleted from the official record. It is not an allegation; it is a matter of record. Chagossian families have shown us the documents and they have been verified by lawyers. Native islanders born on Peros Banhos and Diego Garcia are now being told by a Government claiming future sovereignty over their homeland that they were not born there at all.

This pattern of altering official records is consistent with long-standing concerns expressed by Chagossians who lived in Mauritius, many of whom describe decades of discrimination, marginalisation and a complete lack of constitutional recognition as a distinct people. United Nations human rights experts have previously documented that Chagossians in Mauritius faced entrenched barriers to housing, healthcare, employment and political participation, and continue to experience de facto discrimination as an Afro-descendant minority. Would the Minister care to look at the page on the website of the Mauritian Government which is dedicated to the Chagos Archipelago? There they refer to those who were “forcibly removed” from the islands in the 1960s as

“Mauritians born and residing at the time in the Chagos Archipelago”.

I have seen the passport of a Chagossian who was deported from Diego Garcia to the Seychelles. In that case, the birthplace that was originally recorded as Diego Garcia has been replaced with Mauritius. I am informed by those directly affected that this practice followed political agreements involving the former Mauritian Prime Minister and the former Seychelles President, under which Chagossians living in Seychelles were required to have Mauritius entered on their documents rather than the true place of their birth on the island. Whether these arrangements were informal or formal, the effect is the same: the birthplace of Chagossian natives has been erased, replaced or falsified. That is an act of identity deletion; it is happening now, and the evidence is in front of us.

The way to deal with this is through this amendment, which I believe is essential. The Chagossians were removed once, their homes were demolished, their pets were killed, their possessions were thrown into the sea, and they were shipped to Mauritius and the Seychelles with no warning and no rights. They lost their land, their livelihood and their future. What they ask for today is, I believe, modest in comparison. They ask for the one thing they still possess: the truth of who they are and where they were born. The Committee needs to be cognisant of that. Identity is not a technicality; for a displaced person, it is absolutely everything. It is the final surviving link to their home, lineage, history and dignity. Yet we now know—not just fear or speculate—that the birthplace of Chagossian natives has been altered by an external authority. There can be no more powerful demonstration of why this House must intervene.

The Government have repeatedly argued that decisions about the Chagos should respect international norms—we have heard it many times in this House. International law is absolutely clear on this point. Altering a displaced person’s civil status records without their consent violates the principles laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN guiding principles on internal displacement and the fundamental norms to identity as recognised in human rights jurisprudence.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Callanan and Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to commend the noble and gallant Lord on his amendment. It is an incredibly sensible amendment that should not be contentious because, if there are difficulties arising out of natural causes or disaster, it would be unthinkable for His Majesty’s Government to have to continue to pay large sums of money to the Government of Mauritius. I hope that that will be taken on board.

Secondly, I will refer to the treaty, which, at Article 11, talks about the economic partnership between the United Kingdom and Mauritius. There are three parts to that. The first is the annual sum that has to be paid: there has been lots of conversations around what that is and what it might amount to. The second is the trust fund, which the Minister knows I take a particular interest in and which we will discuss in the eighth group of amendments. The third is the multiyear funding as part of a development framework for projects to be undertaken by the Mauritius Government across 25 years. We have heard very little about this multiyear funding. I wonder whether the Minister could elucidate that and give us some details in relation to what that is and what it is thought to be. In the treaty, it says that the amounts, payments and modality for all those three issues will be agreed separately. So it is important for the House to have some clarity in relation to that and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I was going to say that this has been an excellent debate, but it has not really been much of a debate seeing as nobody from the Labour side has bothered to get up and try to defend the Government’s actions on this matter. Not even the Foreign Office trade union crowd on the Cross Benches have come along to justify the Government’s actions on this. I note from the media reports that apparently the Mauritian AG is in London for discussions, no doubt to celebrate his brilliantly successful negotiation. He will probably find that the Foreign Office has given him another £100 million today for his trouble in coming over here in the first place.

It would not be right for me to begin my contributions without mentioning the excellent forensic speeches of my noble friends Lord Altrincham and Lady Noakes at Second Reading. It seemed to me very convincing that the Government have increasingly got their numbers wrong. I look forward to the noble Baroness attempting to explain her financial figures again.

I am sure that some noble Lords will argue—maybe the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, will—that this agreement has been made and there is nothing we can do about it. They might say that it is an unfortunate oversight, but we cannot change the agreement. However, the treaty, as we have discussed previously, has not yet been ratified; it is not final. The Government could still change their approach. It is unlikely, and it would take political will, but everything is possible.

Now that we know that the treaty is not inevitable and that the overall cost expected when the agreement was reached was wrong, I hope Ministers will take the opportunity to reconsider. In any other walk of life, a decision-maker faced with a significantly higher cost than expected would reassess their position. Why are Ministers failing to take that responsible approach with taxpayers’ money? The Chancellor will get up next week and tell us that the country is bust, and that we need to raise taxes and cut spending, but the FCDO seems to take no account of the extra costs when negotiating this agreement.

My Amendment 22 would require a review of the overall financial cost of the agreement. With such uncertainty about the overall costs, I think this is an entirely reasonable amendment that would give greater transparency to taxpayers on how much of their money will be sent to Mauritius, over time, as we have said before, to fund tax cuts over there. We pay more tax over here, but the Mauritians will be able to cut their taxes with the money that we are very generously sending to them.

As I said, on value for money we are being told to expect spending cuts at the Budget on 26 November. Before the Government cut a single extra service for the British people, Ministers should first consider cutting their surrender deal with the Mauritian Government. In my view, most of the British public would be aghast when presented with the fact that the Government have surrendered territory to a foreign state and simultaneously somehow found themselves paying for the privilege. This is a clear failure to deliver value for money to taxpayers.

My Amendment 70 would require the Government to make a statement explaining why they believe that each payment to Mauritius represents value for money. My Amendment 75 would require the publication of a schedule of expected payments to Mauritius along with their dates. The Government should not resist measures which increase transparency on the financial elements of the agreement.

I gave a wry smile when the noble Lord, Lord Weir, asked the Minister for the breakdown of the costs of this agreement between the MoD budget and the FCDO budget. I hope he has more success than I have in asking this question, because I have asked it five times and she has refused to tell me how much is being paid out of the different budgets. One was beginning to suspect that she does not even know how much money we are handing over on behalf of this deal.

I additionally ask the Minister what powers Ministers have to ensure that the money we hand over to Mauritius is spent as agreed. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, particularly highlighted the trust fund supposedly set up for the benefit of Chagossians, but how they spend it is entirely within the control of Mauritius. There have been well-documented corruption cases in Mauritius; how do we know how that money will be spent? I think we should be told or Ministers should at least seek to find out.

Finally, Amendment 74 relates to a slightly separate question on the part of the UK-Mauritius agreement relating to the employment of Mauritians on the Diego Garcia military base. I tabled it to ask the noble Baroness some specific questions on the practical effect of the article of this agreement. Can she confirm whether this article means Mauritians will be prioritised for employment on the Diego Garcia military base over, for example, British citizens or Chagossians? Who ultimately would their employer be? This also speaks to value for money. Can the Minister confirm whether her department has made any assessment of the impact of the provisions relating to the employment of Mauritians and how much that will contribute to the cost of running the base?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I think Article 6, “Resettlement of Chagossians”, is the most misnamed article in this treaty. It tells us that,

“Mauritius is free to implement a programme of resettlement on the islands of the Chagos Archipelago other than Diego Garcia”.

I am thankful to live in a democracy where I am free to do all manner of things; sometimes I choose not to do all manner of things for various reasons. I am quite sure Mauritius will take the same view in relation to resettlement of Chagossians on the outer islands.

There is no right of resettlement or return in the treaty. I have a later amendment, on the Second Marshalled List, which deals with this. According to the treaty, there is no right of return or no right of resettlement—we need to be very clear on that. I think that is morally wrong. The language in this Bill deals with what I think is a failure of negotiation, to be honest, because I do not think it would have been beyond the wit of man to have had at the very least a right of return, if not a right of resettlement, in the treaty. With the Mauritian AG here in London, what better time to have a discussion about the right of return and the right of resettlement for the Chagossian people?

Amendment 72, in the alternative, seeks to have some accountability for the current aspiration in the treaty—in other words, after it is implemented—to look back and see what is happening in relation to the right of resettlement. That will give some transparency to why the wording in the treaty has been chosen and, again, get to the purpose of the article.

In conclusion, I strongly support both these amendments. It is wrong not to have a right of return and a right of resettlement in the treaty and the way in which it is presented in the treaty is wrong also.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Lilley for leading on this group. The Chagossian community overwhelmingly wants to see a scheme for the resettlement of the archipelago, reversing the forced removal of the islanders in the late 1960s. As we know, many Chagossians living in Mauritius feel that they are treated, even now, as second-class citizens, and this should not be an acceptable situation. We will probe the treatment of the Chagossians in Mauritius more fully when we debate amendments relating to the trust fund.

Many Chagossians still want, understandably, to return to their homeland. The treaty is clear, sadly, that Mauritius shall be free to arrange for resettlement of Chagossians on all the islands of the archipelago except Diego Garcia, but it is not clear in the treaty what this might look like; nor is it clear how likely resettlement actually is in practice. My Amendment 72 is very simple. It merely requires the Government to publish the findings of a review of all discussions between the UK and Mauritius in respect of the resettlement of the islands. The resettlement under the treaty would be for the islands other than Diego Garcia, so this is not something that should undermine the operations of the base. Given that, we cannot see why the Government would be unwilling to share details of their discussions with the Mauritians on resettlement.

Can the Minister please set out clearly how often resettlement was discussed with the Mauritian Government during the negotiations ahead of the treaty, and what her department’s assessment is of the likelihood that Mauritius will establish a scheme for the resettlement of the islands? Would the UK support a resettlement effort financially? Could some of the existing funds that we are giving to Mauritius be used for resettlement? If not, what is the estimated risk that the Mauritian Government would refuse to undertake a resettlement on cost grounds?

In essence, our question to the Government is: what does this treaty mean for the Chagossian community’s hope of resettlement? If, in the Foreign Office’s view, this treaty effectively kills any hope of resettlement, does the Minister not accept that the Government should manage the expectations of the Chagossians and be very clear and transparent with them that that is what they have agreed? We want to end the lack of transparency around the Bill and I hope that the Minister will be able to do that today.

Cleaner Energy Technologies

Debate between Lord Callanan and Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, given the energy trilemma of the cost, the mix and security of supply, and given the year that we have had, should security of supply not be given more prominence in energy policy?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. Security of supply is vital, and it is one reason why we want to continue to roll out the deployment of renewables in the UK—because, of course, if it is generated in the UK, it is secure. Part of the problem that we have seen over the past year has been our exposure to the vagaries of international markets. Sadly, we get only 40% of our gas supplies now from our own resources in the North Sea, and the rest we have to import, either by LNG or by pipeline. So we want more secure, reliable power generated here in the UK, because of course that is the most secure.