Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Kempsell and Lord Morrow

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 31 standing in my name. I want to place on record my appreciation for the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, stepping in last week during the difficult situation I had back home. It again demonstrates clearly that, when you throw an awkward ball to a good player, he will pick it up, make you look good and carry on as if nothing has happened, but I appreciate his assistance in that instance.

I was about to say three lines on this amendment, but then I thought I was perhaps being too presumptuous, because I hoped that the Government, just by reading the amendment, would simply have said that there was no reason why they could not support it. I hope that that is exactly what they will say at the end of the debate, but I think I had better say more than just one or two lines in relation to it before sitting down.

Even if one accepted that it was just £101 million every year for 99 years and considered the proposition in its own terms, without regard for the preceding history, the contrast between this and a one-off payment of £40 million to the Chagossians conveys the message that, while the Mauritians are important and worthy of respect, the Chagossians are, by contrast, worthy only of a few crumbs from the table, relatively speaking, which is deeply hurtful and insulting.

Secondly, to really understand the injustice presented by the arrangement, it obviously needs to be seen in the context of history. The Chagossians do not, for the most part, regard themselves as Mauritian.

I have heard what the noble Lords, Lord Weir and Lord Jay, have said. As the noble Lord, Lord Weir, rightly said, across the United Kingdom there is a multiplicity of views on many issues, so it is difficult to get a concise, exact and single supporting view on this, but I will say these things anyway. In this context, the decision to also pay Mauritius a fantastically large sum of money for the use of just one of the Chagos Islands, while the Chagossians are afforded just £40 million, compounds the present injustice.

To appreciate the menacing nature of the way this monetary injustice greatly compounds the underlying injustice, one must point out that the monies for resettlement set out in the KPMG report are significantly less than the monies it is now proposed the Republic of Mauritius be paid for the UK to lease just one of the Chagos Islands.

Finally, the funding for the Chagossians is also important. Article 11 of the treaty undermines the UK Government’s argument for it by addressing the Chagossians apart from the Mauritians. They are, in effect, saying that it is right to return the islands to the Republic of Mauritius because the pre-8 November 1965 boundaries of the colony express the self-determination of the people of the territory, which implies that everyone, at least from a civic perspective, can be happily Mauritian. However, in that context, there would be no need to address the Chagossians separately and allocate payment to them. In addressing the Chagossians separately, the treaty, in effect, hoists itself with its own petard.

[Lord Kempsell (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in my name in this group, and I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Hannan, who masterfully adumbrated his litany of development ideas, as well as those in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, the noble Lords, Lord Weir and Lord Callanan, and others.

The theme before the Committee in this group has surely been, as the noble Lord, Lord Weir, put it, an attempt to understand the views, wishes, legitimate desires and concerns of Chagossians. How is it possible to do so without a proper process for consultation with the Chagossian community? Much has already been said in the Committee about the inadequacy of the consultation process followed by the Government that has brought us to this point in the design of the Bill and their policy. My Amendment 81C would make the Chagossian contact group, the Government’s official consultation forum, more robust. Indeed, it would ensure that the Chagossian contact group remained in existence throughout the lifetime of the treaty.

In all the impenetrable fora, groups and organisations within Whitehall, the Chagossian contact group has been shrouded, I think it is fair to say, in a little secrecy. I have repeatedly asked Written Questions of Ministers about the operation of this consultation mechanism. We know that it met earlier this year and was attended by a Minister and that it is chaired by a deputy director in the FCDO and has a small secretariat. My amendment would ensure that it remained active and that Chagossians continued to be enfranchised to a greater extent than they have been thus far by the Government.

My Amendment 81G pertains to the theme of resettlement, which has already been mentioned extensively in the debate. The Government prayed in aid the notion of resettlement as one of their key motives for pursuing this policy, and they have taken the word of the Mauritian Government, I think it is fair to say, on trust when it comes to resettlement. To a certain extent, that is to be expected at international negotiations and in bilateral fora, but there is no reason why the Government should not take steps to ensure that the important issue of resettlement is continually checked on by Ministers in future. That is why, in Amendment 81G, I suggest that within 12 months of Royal Assent the Secretary of State should publish a report made in connection with Article 6 of the treaty as to progress on resettlement.

For the sake of timing, I shall speak also to my Amendment 20C, which is grouped here, on the marine protected area. With this amendment, I seek to ensure that the Government take external expertise and consultation of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, mentioned, from universities and scientific experts, who have deep concerns about the potential administration of the marine protected area by the Mauritian authorities and the standards to which those authorities will hold the administration of the MPA and its future designations—whether they will truly be in accordance with the standards that have thus far been set by the UK Government, in terms of both environmental protection and the quality of expertise, scientific and otherwise, used in governing those important regions for marine and broader conservation. My Amendment 20C seeks to ensure that an independent panel is commissioned before those elements of the treaty come into force to provide a serious and well-thought-out independent view, away from the scientific advice that the UK Government will take from their own resources, and to publish that advice so that the international community can see that the Mauritian Government will be held to those international standards.