Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Cash

Report stage
Monday 5th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.