Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Lilley and Lord Weir of Ballyholme

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I want primarily—perhaps later—to talk about my Amendments 20Q and 20U, but I will say something about my noble friend Lord Hannan’s Amendment 20L to emphasise one particular precedent he mentioned in passing but seems the most compelling and dangerous. Indeed, in line with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I have been rather cautious about discussing this because I did not want to put ideas into people’s heads, but, for two reasons, I will go ahead and talk about it now. First, there is no better way to keep a secret than to pronounce it in the House of Lords; and secondly, as my noble friend Lord Hannan said, there are lawyers in every country looking to see whether this is a precedent that they could use to right some past wrong or to change some past circumstance which they would like changed.

The most compelling comparison is between what we are doing now and the reasons given for doing it and the independence of Cyprus, where we severed off the sovereign bases. They were part of a whole. The territorial integrity of Cyprus was divided between the sovereign bases and the rest. That is exactly what we are accused of doing in the case of the Chagos Islands. It is actually much more true in the case of Cyprus than in that of the Chagos Islands, because Cyprus was always governed as one unit by us whereas the Chagos Islands had separate laws, even if they were transmitted from somebody resident in Mauritius. Therefore, if we are saying that there is compelling reason for us to say we cannot separate the Chagos Islands from Mauritius, of which it has never been part, then surely there are compelling reasons why we should never have separated the sovereign base territories from the rest of Cyprus.

Those bases are hugely important. They played a role time and again in recent disputes and interventions, and in the prospect of interventions in the Middle East. We have been able to help fly from them and intercept missiles from Iran coming towards Israel. In previous conflicts, we used the bases there. They of value not only to us but to the whole of NATO. If we put them at risk by saying to the world that we have no right to have separated them then we would be doing something very foolish.

The only difference I can think of—I am offering a solution to this dilemma, because I do not want the issue of the sovereign bases to be opened up in a dangerous way—is that the decisions in Cyprus were taken before the United Nations General Assembly resolution on which the advisory opinion of the ICJ was based, and therefore it did not apply to them. Of course, advisory opinions are not actually binding—they are wrongly taken as being binding but they are not—but do they apply retrospectively? In many cases when courts rule, they say, “This has always been the case; we’ve only just now ruled it”.

I would like to hear how the Minister proposes to defend the sovereign bases in Cyprus from this precedent. She is obviously not doing this willingly; she is obviously unwilling and she is a wonderful Minister, but she has been given a tough job to do. I would like to hear some justification for this. I do not know whether the precedent in Committee allows me to sit down now and stand up later to deal with my amendments, but assuming I can do that, I will.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I will briefly make two points. First, on behalf of my noble friend Lord McCrea, who has had to leave for a family wedding, I will speak to Amendment 57, which principally brings to the Committee’s attention the role of British legal firms in this issue.

We have been critical in this House of the current and, to some extent, the previous Government. Those criticisms are not entirely without merit on the issue of sovereignty. There has also been further British involvement in any number of aspects, the four most significant legal interventions being two cases in connection with UNCLOS; one relating to the advisory opinion of the ICJ; and one on the drafting of the UN security resolution. In each of these four cases, the Mauritius Government used British firms as their legal representation in order to further their aims. In effect, British firms acted on behalf of a foreign Government to challenge British sovereignty, British defence rights and the wishes of British citizens. We cannot do anything about what happened in the past, but I suppose the amendment queries whether there is an appropriate way forward in terms of that level of support for Mauritius. Raising my noble friend Lord McCrea’s amendment gives the Government an opportunity to respond to it.

I want to deal briefly with the wider point. We do not always see eye to eye, but I agree with at least one phrase that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, used: he said that we have to be careful about words, and words matter. One of the major concerns, as highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, and others, might be described as the precedent and the ripple effect. It is undoubtedly the case that in the past we as a nation have made mistakes in dealing with overseas territories. In particular, we have sent out the wrong signals on both the Falklands and Gibraltar. It is probably the case that some, at different points within Governments in the past, would have been quite happy to see those territories dispatched to another sovereign territory on that basis. They can best speak for themselves but, fortunately enough, in each case we have drawn back from what might be described as a fatal mistake. The danger with this is that it crosses the line in handing over that level of sovereignty.

Mention has been made of a range of overseas territories. The one thing that largely unites them is that whatever discussions we have had with different Governments, about whatever level of co-operation, they have ultimately respected the self-determination and the inhabitants’ will for sovereignty. That is what at times has drawn us back. I think this goes beyond that and moves towards a situation regarding the wishes of the Chagossian people and their right to self-determination—and that self-determination may, because we do not know definitively, express itself in them saying, “We want to be part of Mauritius”. If that is their self-determination, so be it. I think it is unlikely to be the case; nevertheless, so be it. The concern is the signal that this sends out to the outside world.

The Minister mentioned the arrangements as regards Gibraltar. I think there has been work ongoing with both this Government and the previous Government to try to find arrangements that are in the best interests of Gibraltar. I entirely acknowledge that, while it is sometimes easy to criticise when looking from outside, the Gibraltar Government themselves have been supportive of those actions and have backed the moves made so far.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Lilley and Lord Weir of Ballyholme

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Amendment 10 deals with the issue of resettlement. This is a very sensitive issue, one that Chagossians feel very deeply about. But Article 6 of the agreement, which is entitled “Resettlement of Chagossians”, fails to give any right to Chagossians to resettle. The wording of Article 6 is:

“In the exercise of its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, Mauritius is free to implement a programme of resettlement on the islands of the Chagos Archipelago other than Diego Garcia. Such resettlement shall be implemented in conformity with the terms of this Agreement and the laws of Mauritius”.


Let us be clear: there is no right for Chagossians to resettle; there is no obligation on Mauritius to resettle the Chagossians. Mauritius is simply free to do resettlement but it does not specify that that resettlement has to be by Chagossians. It could resettle it with Mauritians—just as, when I used to work in Indonesia, it resettled Javans on the various islands such as Borneo and Sumatra. All we are doing is saying that Mauritius can do what it likes—it can do or not do anything that is to the benefit of the Chagossians, or it can give away their former lands and islands to other people—and we will effectively sanctify that through our agreement to Article 6.

Back in 2015, the British Government looked at the possibility of resettlement and asked KPMG to do a study of how much it would cost and how feasible it was. A year later, KPMG came out with a report which stated that resettlement was possible. It would cost certain sums depending how much resettlement was done. If there was a pilot community of 150 people, that would cost in those days £63 million—in current money, that would be about £80 million to £90 million. If there was a medium-sized settlement of 500 people, that would cost about £200 million in today’s money, and if there was a large community of 1,500 people, which is more than the population of Chagos in 1965, that would cost in today’s money £570 million. That is a large sum, but it is much smaller than the sums we have committed to pay Mauritius over the life of this deal. They are largely one-off sums, whereas we are talking of paying Mauritius initially an average of £110 million, inflation adjusted, plus some lump sums and some bringing forward of money in the early period.

We could certainly start a pilot community of Chagossians back in the Chagos Islands for a fraction of what we are otherwise committed to spend on this agreement, so I understand why Chagossians feel really let down and sold out that we are prepared to pay so much money to Mauritius and to designate none of that to their potential resettlement. We pretend to by having this Article entitled “Resettlement of Chagossians”, but it gives no guarantee that the money will be spent in this way.

The study by KPMG looked into the practicalities. The reason it costs money is that we will have to rebuild facilities. On some of the islands there was a church, a hospital, buildings and so on that have fallen into rack and ruin. They would have to be re-established, and there would have to be transport facilities for the envisaged resettled communities to link up with each other and the outside world, but I again point out that these are not huge sums. This is not impossible. It is something that many in the Chagossian community, in the UK, in Mauritius even more, in the Seychelles and elsewhere would like to undertake, but they are not going to be able to undertake it unless Mauritius says so, and one gets the feeling that Mauritius is not terribly well disposed to the idea, otherwise it would not have negotiated such harsh terms in Article 6, which imposes no obligation on it to do so.

I ask Ministers to think again about this and to go back to the Mauritians and say, “I’m sorry, we have”—as they will have done by then—“consulted the Chagossians. We found how eager many of them are to resettle. Many more are eager to have the right of return to visit the graves of their ancestors, the places where they were born and the churches where they worshipped, and we feel they should be given that right, and if we’re going to settle a trust fund on you, we want to be sure it’s going to be used for those purposes as well as perhaps a chunk of the money we’re paying you in rent”. I hope the Minister will look at that in a positive way, given her evident sympathy for the Chagossians, and tell us that there is going to be a little hint of some more positive news that we can give the Chagossian community. I beg to move.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

I will speak briefly in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Callanan, in this group. On resettlement, what we have in the treaty may be described as less than useless. I say that because, to a certain extent, it confers a right that is already there, but it underlines it in such a way and denies others that right. The treaty explicitly says that there is a right for Mauritius to resettle people.

If we have handed over sovereignty to Mauritius, people implicitly have a right to resettle on the other islands anyway but, actually, it very much underlines that Mauritius is completely in control; it is completely in the driving seat. There is a lack of reference to the Chagossians: yes, Mauritius may choose to allow some Chagossians back, but it may choose also to deny them. There is no specific right for the Chagossians.

If, as has been mentioned across the Chamber, we are to try to rectify some of the many ills that we have done to the Chagossian people over the years, having at least some level of right of return is the bare minimum that we should be looking for here. The concern is that, from the point of view of Mauritius, the implication will be that, if it is to allow back some Chagossians, they will be the hand-picked Chagossians who have played ball with the Mauritian Government. If you are a good boy or a good girl, yes, you may be allowed back. If, however, you have been part of the awkward squad, you may have a much lesser chance of being resettled on the Chagos Islands than, for example, Chinese contractors. That is the problem.

These amendments would at least take a step towards trying to ameliorate and rectify that situation. If we cannot give the Chagossians an opportunity or a right, which is completely missing in the treaty and missing in the Bill, we are not giving them anything.