Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere

3rd reading
Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, what are we here for if not to think again? We are wriggling painfully on a hook. In the early days, a lot of people, hearing that the Chagos Islands were to be handed over, understood it to be some kind of restitution to the indigenous Chagossians, whom we all agree were very badly treated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But, with every week that has passed since that initial announcement was made, the arguments have crumbled.

It has become clear that the Chagossians do not want to be handed to a foreign power that has never governed them and whose interest in the archipelago is financial. The Chagossians are here, as always, watching in the Gallery—their silence a neat symbol of how they have been overlooked in this entire debate. It has become clear that Mauritius does not have the capacity to maintain, as my noble friend Lord Deben says, the world’s greatest marine conservation area. It has become clear that the price tag is vastly higher than we were initially led to believe. It has become clear that foreign powers and unfriendly foreign powers are in favour of this deal. It has become clear that we are steamrolling over democracy.

If, as the upper House and the revising Chamber, we are not prepared to take a stand on something of this magnitude and as permanent in its impact in changing the size of the United Kingdom and changing the maps—this is going to be remembered long after people have forgotten what the inflation rate was in 2026 or whether we banned X—then what on earth are we here for?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to address just one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beamish. He said that the previous Government would inevitably have done a deal. Plainly, this is not so. As my right honourable friend Tom Tugendhat made clear in the debates on this Bill in the other place, both he and I, when he was Minister for Security, made clear our opposition to adopting this course of negotiations. Furthermore, when my noble friend Lord Cameron was Foreign Secretary, he was offered a similar deal to the present one and we know that he stopped the process. The current treaty is and remains an act of wanton strategic self-harm.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

This Government already have a very considerable number of safe and legal routes. I need only remind the noble Baroness that we have had more than half a million people arriving on safe and legal routes in the past five years. We are one of the most generous countries in the world. The noble Baroness and those who sit on the Benches opposite never adequately explain why it is said that more safe and legal routes would stop people crossing the channel. The point is, as even the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury accepted, that if you impose a cap, the people who want to come here who are not accepted via a safe and legal route will simply take to the boats. It is no answer to say that safe and legal routes will stop the dangerous channel crossings. Our imperative is to save lives.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for taking the time. I cannot imagine that anyone in this House likes the Rwanda scheme from first principles. It is cumbersome, it is expensive. I have listened to a lot of the criticism from various Benches, and a lot of it hit home, but what I have not heard is a credible alternative. We are in this situation because there has been this steady policy of overturning every deportation order from the Bench. We have therefore run out of alternatives. Will the Minister tell me what kind of legal changes might be necessary in order to ensure that we get the policy that was promised and whether those changes will include looking again at some of the international associations and agreements into which we have entered?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. He is absolutely right: we realised that, unfortunately, institutional changes were required. That is why we brought forward the innovative scheme set out in the Illegal Migration Bill. The changes brought forward by that Bill will ensure that a removal system that acts as an effective deterrent to illegal entrants will be fully operational and stop the dangerous channel crossings. My noble friend is entirely right to highlight that, to date, it has been all too easy for removals of those who should not be in our country to be thwarted—not least, I regret to say, by the activities of representations at the last minute relating to foreign national offenders, for example, from Members of the other place sitting on the Opposition Benches.

EU Settlement Scheme

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere

Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As the noble Earl rightly observes, the High Court judgment upheld both limbs of the IMA challenge: first, that the withdrawal agreement residence right of a holder of pre-settled status does not expire for failure to make a second application to the EUSS; and, secondly, that a pre-settled status holder acquires the right to permanent residence under the withdrawal agreement automatically once the conditions for it are met. The intention has always been to provide digital proof of status, and that remains the department’s view.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, some people will always blame Britain and never Brussels. One of the reasons that this case came to court is because we have the independent monitoring authority, run by Sir Ashley Fox, a former colleague of mine and of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. It has a budget of £5.5 million and 50 staff and has been working assiduously to ensure that EU nationals in the UK enjoy their full rights under the treaty. There is no equivalent body. It is supposedly the Commission that does it on other the side with a couple of people there.