Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Callanan and Earl of Leicester

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

I want to add to my noble friend’s words. I will not read the whole letter, but this is a copy of the letter to the Minister from the Chagossian people. They write that the Minister’s words

“cut deeply. They erase our history, our dignity, and the truth of who we are. They echo the very language used to justify our people’s deportation between 1968 and 1973. And they are demonstrably false … For more than a century before our exile, the Chagos Islands were home to a multigenerational, settled population. This is not our opinion. It is documented in church registers of births, marriages, and burials across Peros Banhos, Salomon and Diego Garcia; colonial-era records describing communities with homes, chapels, gardens and workplaces; judgments of the UK High Court in the Bancoult cases; the International Court of Justice; United Nations resolutions; academic research stretching across decades. We were not transient workers. We were a Creole-speaking people, rooted in our islands, with our own traditions, our own culture, and our own community life. To say that our homeland had ‘no permanent population’ is simply untrue … You also stated the islands had ‘never been self-governing’. Chagossians have never claimed to have operated a Westminster-style system. But for generations, in the long absence of resident British administrators, our islands were organised and cared for by local leaders from within our own community”.

This has been confirmed in academic work. Misley Mandarin, who lives here in London now with his family, finishes,

“We ask you not for sympathy, but for recognition. Not for pity, but for accuracy. Not for charity, but for truth. We deserve self-determination. We want to stay British and return to our islands as British citizens”.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 20T and 81K, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lilley, seek to achieve a similar objective to Amendments 80 and 82. Given the similarity of the two pairs of amendments, I was slightly surprised to see the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, degroup his amendments. We could have had a very satisfactory debate with the original grouping, but of course I fully respect the noble Lord’s right to degroup his amendments. I am slightly surprised, because he criticised me for doing something similar last week, but it is, of course, only right that noble Lords should be able to debate their amendments in the groupings that most suit them.

I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Lilley has the right to self-determination, as confirmed by a referendum of the Chagossians, in his amendment. This is an important point that I am sure many noble Lords will agree with.

Amendment 20T would also delay the implementation of the key parts of this Bill until some progress has been made on establishing the joint parliamentary commission. It seems to me that too many core parts of the treaty are not tied to deadlines or quantifiable outcomes. As a result, it would be hard to monitor whether Mauritius, and indeed the UK, are fulfilling their obligations under the treaty in a timely manner. My noble friend Lord Lilley’s amendment helpfully ties the joint parliamentary commission to the coming into effect of the Act, forcing Ministers and their Mauritian counterparts to get on with the job so that the commission can play an important role from the very beginning of the treaty’s effect. It is a very sensible proposal.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on whether the Government will agree that establishing a joint parliamentary commission would be a useful tool going forward.