Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Lilley and Lord Callanan

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity also to speak to my Amendments 20U and 20Q. Amendment 20U would provide that the Bill shall not come into force until the Secretary of State has published

“a report on how the Treaty may increase any political or legal risks”—

that is what we have been told underlie it—

“related to … reliance on third countries required to service the base … risks of litigation from Mauritius regarding the base in Diego Garcia in the International Court of Justice”—

and I hope this will include some explanation of the Government’s reactions to the Mauritian declarations of 23 September 1968 which, as I understand it, mirrored our determination that the ICJ should not have jurisdiction on disputes between previous and current Commonwealth states and ourselves; Mauritius likewise said that any such disputes should be settled reciprocally. Finally, the report should include the

“risks of litigation in an arbitral tribunal under Annex VII of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea”.

The Minister said a little while ago that we spent many hours discussing the reasons or rationale behind the decision to cede sovereignty. In fact, we have spent many hours dragging out from the Government an explanation of their decision to do so. It is pretty clear that the decision came first, and their justification has been cobbled together in response to each successive challenge that has been put forward to it. The more it has been challenged, the more tenuous the rationale has become. It has been spread out like an elastic band and has become thinner and more transparent. It is very clear that, if we keep on this process, it will eventually break and then the Government will be without any rationale at all.

The Government first suggested that the ICJ decision was purely advisory but Mauritius might come back and somehow get a definitive ruling out of the ICJ. However, that was then abandoned because, of course, we had the specific opt-out when we signed up to the ICJ that it would not be able to consider disputes between ourselves and present or previous Commonwealth countries. One thing has puzzled me. Looking back through the record, I have never seen Ministers refer in words to that opt-out. They have tacitly acknowledged it, because they move on to talking about the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Likewise, when we have heard from the great mandarins of the Foreign Office, none of them has ever explicitly let past their lips—if I have read the transcript correctly—the existence of this opt-out. That is a great mystery. When people do not say something, one wants to know why, particularly when they tacitly admit it.

Oh dear, I hope I have not caused the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to leave in disgust. We were hoping he would be able to break this omertà that has forbidden him and his colleagues ever to mention this.

My suspicion—of course it is no more than a suspicion, and the person who could have set that right has left the Chamber—is that the Permanent Secretaries in the Foreign Office and the other mandarins who have spoken in defence of the Government on this never actually told Ministers about this opt-out and they do not like to admit that. Ministers do not like to admit that they did not know about it, because that looks pretty difficult. Maybe in the course of debate we will find that that is an unworthy consideration and they were told explicitly at the beginning there was no possibility of the ICJ reaching a binding judgment on the sovereignty of the Chagos. They tacitly accept that is the case and move on to the possibility of a judgment coming from the tribunal set up under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

My amendment would force the Government to be more explicit about that. What precedents are there for this tribunal ruling on sovereignty? The noble Baroness said that she thought it was very unlikely—I think that was her phrase—that the tribunal would directly rule on sovereignty. I think she is more than right on that, because there are no precedents I can find for it ruling on sovereignty. But then she said that it might rule on other things and sort of assume sovereignty. I would like some examples of that sort of thing happening, if it is a sufficiently big risk for us to be doing this nefarious deed of ceding sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. We have not had that up to now.

The tenuous justification moves on to say that there may be a ruling that would somehow assume sovereignty, but what negative effects would that have? It would apparently put the base at risk, because of its reliance on being supplied from other countries. From which other countries is the Diego Garcia base supplied, and in what way, and how would that be put at risk? Is it supplied from Aden? Would the Suez Canal be closed to British shipping if it was thought to be supplying the base? Would we get labour from mainland Africa to help run the base? Would the Philippines refuse to send Filipino workers to help run the base? When we are given such a tenuous reason, at the end of a long chain of tenuous arguments, we need some substance to it. This amendment would require the Government to give that.

Amendment 20Q would provide that the Bill would come into force only

“when the Secretary of State has published a report into the governance of the Chagos Archipelago under the Treaty, including local administration and democracy”.

The Minister has said that there was never any settled population in the Chagos Islands, nor any system of local administration. I am sure that was said in good faith, and I can well understand that the detailed history of the Chagos Archipelago is not something most of us have studied, but a letter has now been sent to the Minister, and to the committee that has been asked to consult with the Chagossians, pointing out that, in the absence of the British, who sort of came and went, the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands elected a chief to help with the governance and local administration of the islands. Therefore, the settled inhabitants did have a local administration in the past, and we want to know what is going to replace it in future.

We know that Mauritius, while it has no obligation to, will be able to resettle the islands. It may, of course, settle them with Mauritians, not Chagossians. Either way, what system of administration will there be, and will it be democratic or autocratic? I think we should know. My Amendment 20Q would require the Government to spell that out, and to acknowledge and accept that it was a mistake to say that there has never been any system of local administration, when clearly there has.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hannan of Kingsclere for leading this debate. He set out a very strong argument for his amendments in this group, as did my noble friend Lord Lilley and the noble Lord, Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown.

Amendment 20L, in the name of my noble friend Lord Hannan, is a very helpful amendment in Committee, as it affords the Committee the opportunity to debate the impact of the Government’s decision on the Chagos Archipelago on other overseas territories. While I accept that there are, of course, legal arguments here, we believe that they should be explored fully. I want to focus on the impact of the UK Government’s treatment of the Chagossians, and on our reputation among other overseas territories, which look to the UK for steadfast support and security. How do residents, and descendants of the residents, of other overseas territories feel now that the Government have caved in to pressure from their international lawyer friends on the question of the Chagos Islands?

As my noble friend Lord Hannan observed, the British Indian Ocean Territory is not the only overseas territory subject to legal claims by foreign states. Does the Minister accept that the behaviour of our Government on this issue will have ramifications for the level of trust in the UK held by residents of other overseas territories? We should be standing up for our overseas territories and protecting those who live on them, not caving in to activist international lawyers. In my view, it really is that simple. Can the Minister confirm that the UK Government are not considering ceding sovereignty over any other British Overseas Territories? Will she rule out such a move in future? We want residents of the overseas territories to feel secure, and I hope that the Minister’s words in response to this group will help to give them that security.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Lilley and Lord Callanan

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

To give him some more money.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

Probably to get some more money. Indeed, we should have dealt with that in the previous session on money. How much more money is he asking for? One understands there are debates in Mauritius saying they have done so well that they should now reopen discussions and get a little more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is not my fault if the Liberal Democrats do not want to be consistent on this.

The point is that colleagues of the noble Lords to my left have argued in the other place for a referendum, but the Liberal Democrats in your Lordships’ House have done nothing. The noble Lord has tabled just two amendments, only one of which is consequential. When we debated ratification, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, withdrew his amendments to the Motion without a Division. I think that speaks a thousand volumes. It seems that it falls to my noble friends on these Benches to stand up for the Chagossians and ask for the referendum that they rightly deserve. I beg to move.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I support my noble friend Lord Callanan’s amendment. My own amendment also calls for a referendum. The Government have given priority to the Mauritians—and, indeed, to some extent, the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice—maintaining what they think of as territorial integrity over the right to self-determination. That should not be the case. Under international law, the right of a group within a decolonised area to self-determination has priority over so-called territorial integrity. It is very regrettable that that has not yet been conceded.

When we come to vote on this subject on Report, as no doubt we will, I very much hope that this will be an area where there is widespread support across the House. I very much hope that the Liberal Democrats will support a vote requiring a referendum among the Chagossian people over the right to self-determination. We are told that they did so in the Commons. In fact, they were so moved by it and thought it such an important issue that they voted against the whole Bill at Third Reading.

So far, the amendments the Liberal Democrats have tabled cannot be said to be amendments that would require a referendum. Amendment 80, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, would require that

“a Minister of the Crown must engage with the Government of the Republic of Mauritius with a view to establishing a Joint Parliamentary Commission”.

We are getting “could”, “may” and “might” added together.