Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, I will say at the outset that I do not see the need for the amendments we are discussing. However, I do think that responding to and respecting the wishes and interests of the Chagossians is one of the most important and difficult issues facing the Governments of both the United Kingdom and Mauritius.

There is a lot of history to make good here. It is all the more difficult, in that there is no single Chagossian view. There are Chagossian people in Britain, in Mauritius, in the Seychelles and elsewhere, and there are different views among and indeed within the different communities. It would be unwise to think that there is an immediate or straightforward answer to meeting the wishes and interests of these different communities. My guess is that current and future British and Mauritian Governments will be dealing with these questions for quite some time to come.

It is sensible of the Government to ask the International Relations and Defence Committee to look into the issue, and sensible of them to conduct a survey of Chagossian interests and wishes. This is not an easy task. There will be, and indeed already are, doubts expressed about the time and scope of the IRDC’s work. That, I fear, is inevitable, but I hope that the results of the IRDC’s survey and its report will give the Minister some firm ground on which to make her promised statement in due course.

I know that discussions have been going on between the Mauritian and British Governments about the way forward. I hope that one conclusion of these talks will be that the £40 million trust fund to be administered by Mauritius will be administered in the interests of all Chagossians, and in a way that reassures Chagossians, wherever they are now, that their views are properly heard and represented. There is understandable scepticism about this, and it needs to be addressed.

I hope too that the Government will recognise and indeed facilitate the right of return to and resettlement on the Chagos outer islands, and that here too, there will be close and constructive co-operation between the British and Mauritian Governments.

There is a lot of history to put right as far as the Chagossian community is concerned, in Britain and elsewhere. The Government are, I know, fully conscious of that, and I am sure that future Governments will be too. Meanwhile, I hope that this Bill will soon be approved, passed and implemented.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I would certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jay, when he says that the Chagossian people, in the disparate parts of the world in which they live, are not united on many issues. However, one thing on which they are united is their desire for employment opportunities on Diego Garcia, so I very much support the words of my noble friend Lord Callanan.

When I looked at this as a Foreign Office Minister, one of the things that staggered me was the number of people employed on that base from Sri Lanka, India and many other countries. There were occasionally some Chagossians, but there was no comprehensive, well-thought-out framework for Chagossians, be they in Crawley, Mauritius or the Seychelles, to find opportunities for employment in Diego Garcia. It was almost as though there was an underlying desire on the part of both the MoD and the Americans not to employ them on the basis, probably, that they might well go on to claim other rights. There was a lot of concern about whether there would be an issue of self-determination if they went there and settled there. I think my noble friend Lord Callanan’s amendment makes a great deal of sense. This is one issue that the Chagossian people are fully agreed on, and we should absolutely support it.