British Sovereignty Protection (Chagos Islands) Bill [HL]

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Weir, on advancing this eminently sensible and timely Bill before the House today. It is also a great privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Lilley and to inform the House that I am glad to say that he has given most of my speech, which means that I can greatly accelerate the remarks that I am going to make to the House today.

The first point is that it is regrettable that we need to bring this Bill at all. It is perhaps a statement of the approach taken by the Government towards the support for the overseas territories that we have, sadly, to present this Bill in order to put a brake on the surrender of our own sovereign territory. But that is what it has come to.

My noble friend Lord Lilley addressed the various legal shibboleths that the treaty was premised upon; in particular, he dealt carefully with the fact that the advisory judgment of the ICJ and the powers of UNCLOS mean that there cannot be any international court which can rule upon our sovereignty over those islands.

There is one other legal issue that my noble friend did not touch on, and it is that which I ask directly to the Minister to answer. In the debates on the government Bill last Session, it was accepted by the Government that the state of Mauritius is a signatory to the Treaty of Pelindaba, which forbids the positioning of nuclear weapons on African soil. If the Chagos Islands become part of Mauritius, they will be covered by the operation of that treaty, and we know from many sources—not least from the speech given by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, during the debates on that Bill—that the Americans routinely position nuclear weapons in the Chagos Islands. Indeed, there is some media reporting that they are stored there.

On that basis, we have never had a satisfactory explanation from the Government, or indeed any explanation, as to how it is said that Mauritius under this agreement would agree to the continuance of the use of the base for the storage or transit of nuclear weapons. Accordingly, it seems to me that our American allies are going to be very hostile to this surrender of sovereignty, and the Government have so far just ignored this point.

My question today to the Minister is: what do the Government say about Mauritius’s membership of the Treaty of Pelindaba in relation to the agreement that was reached? I very much hope that the Minister, being part of Mr Burnham’s Administration who have agreed to review the deal, will say that it does not matter because they are going to revise our view on this deal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

I will come on to address that issue. Let me first return to what I was setting out, which is that, because of the legal position—which, as I say, I will come back to—negotiations were started by the previous Conservative Government. There were 11 rounds of talks, conceding the principle of UK sovereignty and establishing the model of direct payment to Mauritius to lease back Diego Garcia.

When they came to power in 2024, the Labour Government inherited a draft treaty that was close to completion and a political context in which the risk to base operations had never been greater. Nevertheless, the Government were able to secure much stronger provisions in the treaty to protect the base well into the next century. I should say that in drawing this up, the UK and the US worked hand in glove in developing the treaty, and we continue to work together. When the Diego Garcia treaty was signed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, we had US support. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Weir, said, it is clear that the US, through President Trump, has taken a different view, so we will continue to work together, as has been made clear by both the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister. We need the support of both Mauritius and the US to find a solution that works for everyone.

The noble Lords, Lord Callanan, Lord Lilley, Lord Bellingham and Lord Hannan, asked why we are handing over sovereignty on the basis of a non-binding legal opinion. This is not just about a legal judgment; it is about the long-term safety and security of the UK. The only way to maintain the base safely in the long term is through this agreement. There is no alternative, whereby we just hang on to the base without an agreement. The previous Conservative Government tried to do that under Boris Johnson and when that failed, they started the negotiations.

I accept that there are those who argue that we should ignore the legal challenges, but there is no question that we can do that. Doing nothing is simply not an option and threatens the UK’s safety. Some argue that there are carve-outs and exemptions that the Government have missed. We have heard these arguments before, and I am afraid we have to reject them. On the ICJ exemption, although the 2017 amendment does indeed mean that the International Court of Justice cannot rule on disputes between the UK and Commonwealth countries, this is not the only viable route to a binding judgment and not the one we consider most likely.

With regard to the UNCLOS—

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Can the Minister identify what those other potential sources of judgments are, rather than just alluding to them?

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

There is a misunderstanding of the legal position on Article 298 of UNCLOS. This does not create an exemption in respect of military bases, but in respect of disputes concerning military activities. As I say, there are other routes through international legal judgments that could be quickly translated into UK domestic proceedings.

Moving on to the issue of the Chagossians, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, and the noble Lords, Lord Hannan, Lord Weir and Lord Callanan, I share noble Lords’ strength of feeling about the Chagossian community and the injustices they have experienced, and we have heard some very powerful contributions on that during today’s debate. Let me say again: the Government deeply regret the way the Chagossians were removed from the islands, and we are committed to building a relationship with the Chagossian community that is based on respect and acknowledgement of past wrongdoings.

However, we have to accept and respect the fact that there is a diversity of opinion within the community. We continue to engage with the Chagossian groups. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, asked when the contact group last met; it met last week. We will continue that process of consultation.

On the Bill and the call for a referendum, which the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, and others raised, I am afraid that we reject the Bill’s call for a referendum. The decision to enter into a treaty is a matter of national security, so we have to be very careful about how we approach that. That is why, while rejecting a referendum, we have taken concrete steps to help the Chagossians, including protecting British citizenship rights, increasing UK support and negotiating a treaty which would enable Mauritius to develop a programme of resettlement, which the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, referred to, on islands other than Diego Garcia.

The noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, mentioned the environment. Although national security was paramount in negotiating the treaty, we also secured a deal that would continue to protect the unique environment of the Chagos Archipelago. We agreed to work with Mauritius in establishing a new marine protected area with clear and credible commitments to ensure the Chagos marine environment will be effectively protected for generations. This includes a full ban on commercial fishing, high-level IUCN-aligned protection for the Great Chagos Bank and only tightly controlled artisanal fishing to support any future Chagossian resettlement.

I know that there is great interest in the financial side. The Bill proposes that Parliament assumes a formal approval function for any future payments related to the Chagos Archipelago. This is not new ground. We have discussed many similar suggestions previously, as explained clearly by both my noble friend Lady Chapman and the Minister for the Overseas Territories in the other place. A requirement for a vote before payments is not only contrary to the principle that treaty payments can be made under the royal prerogative but would create an unacceptable risk for the long-term sustainability of the base. Without certainty, the UK and US military would not be able to invest in viable capabilities, which would have major operational implications for the base.

I turn finally to the Pelindaba treaty, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Murray. He asked whether the US could be prevented from having nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia. This is completely untrue and we are confident that nothing in this treaty conflicts with our abilities to uphold international law and to continue to operate the base as we do today.

I fully respect the strong views that noble Lords have on Diego Garcia and the future of the base. I hope that I have been able to answer most of the questions set out today. I have to say—I think this is not unexpected—that the Government cannot support the Bill because it seeks to tie their hands in protecting the base. It would subcontract the exercise of prerogative powers, which would set a dangerous precedent and be manifestly contrary to the national interest and security of the United Kingdom. I am afraid that we are not able to support the Bill, but I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate today. I am sure we will continue to discuss this issue in future.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Visit

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

That is a really important question. I speak regularly about this issue to our Faith Minister in the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government , my noble friend Lord Khan. It is a sad fact that we see international events played out on our streets, in our schools and in communities in this country. Whereas debate and free speech are completely legitimate, we are concerned about some of the more abusive behaviour and victimisation that has taken place, and the rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism. We work very closely across departments to make sure that we are doing what we need to do. It is not something that we used to see quite as much as we do today, and we see it played out in our politics, for reasons that we can all try our best to understand. It is very important that the noble Lord raised that and reminds us about it.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, in which I noticed the following sentence:

“Prime Minister Mustafa outlined the essential reforms that the Palestinian Authority are currently undertaking”.


Can the Minister help us by identifying what essential reforms he referred to?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

There are many reforms, as noble Lords can imagine, that the Palestinian Authority know that they need to make. The conversations that I have had have centred on their need to develop their ability to manage money responsibly and how they raise money and accesses funds to be able to deliver the services that they are going to have to deliver in the future. That may feel like high-ambition work from where we are today, and I think they would accept that, but we have to start somewhere, and it is right that we are providing the assistance that we are.

European Convention on Human Rights: 75th Anniversary

Lord Murray of Blidworth Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to serve on the Joint Committee on Human Rights under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, whose timely debate this is and whose contribution we heard earlier. As a barrister practising in part in the field of public law and human rights, and as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and like all noble Lords who have spoken, I place the highest value on human rights. However, human rights are not one and the same thing as the European Convention on Human Rights as it is today.

In March 2021, the former professor of law and legal philosophy at the University of Oxford, John Finnis, and I wrote a paper for Policy Exchange entitled Immigration, Strasbourg, and Judicial Overreach. In his foreword to that paper, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, noted that:

“There is only one way to determine the limits of the commitment undertaken by the states which subscribed to European Convention on Human Rights and that is by reading the instrument and construing it against the background which would have been known or assumed by the parties at the time. Indeed, this is the only way to understand the meaning of any utterance whatever. But the European Court of Human Rights have felt free to give the Convention a meaning which could not possibly have been intended by its subscribers on the ground that it is a ‘living instrument’ which it is entitled—indeed, required—to update in accordance with what it considers to be the spirit of the times”.


In the paper, we examine the transformation of the convention in respect of immigration policy, the position in 1951 being that the signatory states

“have no obligation to let in refugees … have no legal or treaty obligation to accept refugees at all … and have no absolute obligation to continue to provide asylum for refugees who are a danger to the community”.

They were matters for the states themselves.

Forty years later, the European Court of Human Rights set out a line of judgments that has circumvented those principles. It has done so along two routes. The first gives the ECHR’s absolute prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment, found at Article 3, a radically expansive interpretation, which is neither morally nor legally warranted. The second circumvention has been via Article 8—the right to a private and family life—which has been expanded to override immigration controls. This is something which those who drafted, signed and ratified the convention would certainly have rejected. These misinterpretations facilitate and incentivise unlawful migration, and hamper European states in justly handling the issue. Elastic, expansive and inauthentic treaty interpretations such as these are contributing substantially to the real risk that the rule of law in European states will be overstrained.

Behind this judicial transformation of refugee and migration law lies the doctrine, judicially invented in 1975, that the ECHR is a living instrument. This doctrine enabled the Strasburg judges to reform social arrangements, even very fundamental ones, either without debate and approval from democratic legislatures or with a retrospective approval, strongly encouraged by the court’s assertions that these reports are already required by law and by international agreements and obligations which this country has long accepted as binding. In either form, this is an unconstitutional purpose. It is unfitting for the ECHR. The convention was intended not to provide an engine to social reform, still less for top-down reforms, but to block regression from the level of respect for rights that was standard in 1950 in the founder states—distinguishing them from the defeated fascist states and communist tyrannies imposed on Europe in the late 1940s.

The calls for withdrawal that we have heard in relation to the convention come about as a result of these issues. I submit that this House will expect to see the European Convention on Human Rights reformed, or face a clamour which may be unavoidable.