Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Murray of Blidworth

3rd reading
Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an important debate on an important Bill and a considerable treaty that impacts on people’s lives and on international law, and which has direct relevance to UK national security. But this regret amendment has a bit of a Cambodia year zero feel to it, as if it all started last summer.

A casual observer would not be aware from this debate—notwithstanding the point that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, just indicated—that the previous Government chose to open negotiations to cede sovereignty in November 2022, without a mandate or consulting the Chagossian people. That decision by the previous Government, which we now know was opposed by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and considered a mistake by the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, was done without consultation and was not predicated on guaranteeing Chagossian rights. Furthermore, we now know that it was actively ongoing in April 2024. It was at that point that the then Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, wrote to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee to confirm the continuation of the negotiations, but also, regrettably, the ongoing denial of the resettlement and consultation rights of the community. So if we are to have regrets, perhaps there is quite a lot that can be shared around the Chamber.

I have previously said, and I do not want to repeat it, that we have a deep regret with the current Government. They have chosen not to change the path of the previous Government in coming to office, and they chose not to conclude the process differently. That has been the essence of the votes on the amendments in this House. At each step of the way, I have sought to raise the concern about a lack of consultation, consent and rights. I am very pleased that the House backed my amendments to seek to address this, and I hope very much that the Commons will now back this too. Putting the permissive elements of Chagossian rights in the treaty on a Mauritian and UK statutory footing should now be the priority. I hope this will get cross-party support.

From the outset, I have raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the financial arrangements and value for money. I was also very pleased that the House backed my amendments to give Parliament, and through it the wider Chagossian community, a much greater say—indeed, a final say—on ceasing making payments if Mauritius does not honour its commitments as part of the treaty. As the House knows, there are mechanisms in place only if the UK renege on commitments, not Mauritius. I am not saying that it will and I am sure both parties have entered into the agreement in good faith, but if, for whatever reason, they fail to honour commitments, Parliament must have the ability to cease the financial elements of the agreement. I hope that the Government will move on these areas as they are the view expressed by this House.

I turn to some of the wider political arguments that we have heard—and we have heard quite a lot. Notwithstanding the “year zero” feel of this amendment, anyone listening to the debate or reading it in Hansard should understand the basic numbers of this House, because some external messaging about stopping the Bill, and the last-ditch efforts of people who have not stopped it, need to be put into context. There are—and I like many of them—281 Conservative Members of this House, while my Benches have 75. There is a separate argument as to the numbers, of course, but the number of Conservative Peers alone could sway the decision today if the Motion is voted on, and I understand that it will be. It is basically a regret Motion. The Conservatives have chosen, with the fire and fury that we have heard in opposition, not to oppose the Bill today but to complain about it. The whole public should be aware that that is the reality of what will be happening today, and we will see how many of those 281 will at least complain about it, even though they are not seeking to stop it.

As we reach the end of this Bill, I thank most particularly the Chagossian community, many members of which have watched our debates. I have regretted some of the language that they have had to listen to, but I hope many of them feel that there are many people in this House who believe sincerely in their rights.

I thank Ministers who have been willing to listen, engage and—on certain occasions, as we have heard today from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley—agree. I want to chat with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about how persuasive he was, because I hope the Minister will now act on the other amendments that we have heard, but presumably that will have to be for ping-pong.

I support those who have helped me in the debate, including Adam Bull in our whips’ office, and many other people who have been in touch. I hope we can make progress and focus now on the priorities, which are Chagossian legal rights of resettlement, active consultation and participation, value for money and finance. We should return to these issues after the Commons has considered our sensible amendments.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Murray of Blidworth

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way; I have listened carefully to what he has said, as I always do. Does he agree that there is a distinction, however, between debating legislation that gives effect to a treaty that has been agreed and ratified by Parliament, which this treaty has, and implementing legislation which seeks to alter a treaty that has been agreed?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Lord seeks to justify his intervention but fails to do so. Because of the way the treaty is drafted and the way Article 18 operates, the treaty can come into force only when this legislation is implemented. That is unusual, but it has the effect of not allowing the noble Lord to make the point he tries to make. He argues that my noble friend Lord Callanan cannot make this amendment because it is in some way in breach of the agreement that has already been signed by the Government, but that agreement is not in force. This is a point we have explored in great detail. I am sure the Minister would agree with me on that point.

Moving to the other amendments in the group, I entirely support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Lilley. I am very grateful to the reference that he and my noble friend Lord Bellingham made to the points that I made at Second Reading in respect of the non-recognition of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. I would just add one point in furtherance of that. The International Court of Justice also has no power and no jurisdiction to query the dispute over the Chagos.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who I am sad to see is not in his place, heavily relies on the evidence of Sir Christopher Greenwood, but he chooses to ignore evidence which does not favour his case. A very powerful exposition of the contrary case was put by Professor Richard Ekins, KC, professor of constitutional law at Oxford. He made it clear that the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction specifically excludes any dispute with the Government of any other country which is or has been a member of the Commonwealth. Mauritius’s acceptance of the ICJ’s jurisdiction also excludes disputes with the Government of any other country which is a member of the British Commonwealth of nations.

If there had been any basis upon which Mauritius could have sought a binding ICJ judgment against the UK, it would have already done so. The fact is that no such basis exists or has ever existed, which is why Mauritius was forced to use the advisory opinion route to obtain its non-binding advisory opinion. Its bargaining position would have been far stronger if it had had a binding ruling against the UK, but the fact is that it has chosen to negotiate without seeking such a ruling, because it obviously knows that there is no way in which it can obtain such a binding ruling.

For those reasons, I strongly support the lock that is present in my noble friend Lord Lilley’s amendment. It would mean that only if there is a binding ruling should this treaty come into force, and therefore the Chagos Islands should remain in British possession and this act of strategic self-harm should be avoided.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Murray of Blidworth

2nd reading
Tuesday 4th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As I said earlier in my remarks, that was a decision with which I strongly disagreed then, and I strongly disagree now. He was plainly wrong in so saying.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Forgive me: I have given way once, and time is limited.

Professor Ekins, professor of law and constitutional government at Oxford, set out in detail, when he gave evidence to the House of Lords International Agreements Committee, the failings in the treaty. In particular, he set it out in even more detail in his Policy Exchange paper published at that time. I strongly urge the Minister to consider those two items in detail during the pause in proceedings brought about by the decision not to proceed with the committal Motion tonight.

There can be little doubt, contrary to the Government’s expostulations about saving the base, so ably outlined by my noble friend Lord Altringham, that this in fact weakens the strategic interests of our country. It does so without any sound legal or geopolitical basis, and, as many noble Lords have noted, without any reference to the wishes of those who lived in the archipelago, shamefully removed on the orders of a Labour Government —a shame that, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, noted, is about to be repeated and amplified by this present Labour Government.

Finally, the Minister said that the previous Government had entirely overlooked the Chagossian people, a calumny that was repeated by the noble Lord, Lord Beamish. Not so. Section 3 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 —a Conservative piece of legislation—was the first legislation to make provision for Chagos Islanders and their direct descendants to obtain British nationality, something successive Labour Governments had failed to provide.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Forgive me, but the shame, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree, comes from the removal of the Chagossian people from the Chagos Islands, not from the agreement itself.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Yes, and as the noble Lord will recall from the debate that we had on the treaty, that was accelerated under the Heath Administration in 1970 and concluded under the Conservative Government. The denial of repatriation was then subsequently under another Conservative Government. My point is that all of us in this country have a dark record when it comes to Chagossian rights. Our task now should be how we at least restore some of those.

The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, started his remarks by saying that the House of Commons was denied the opportunity of debating the treaty during the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act period of scrutiny. He knows, because he will remember the debate we had on the treaty, that, as Erskine May makes perfectly clear, one of the mechanisms for the House of Commons to deny ratification of a treaty would be through an Opposition day debate. During the scrutiny period of this treaty in the House of Commons, the Conservative Party chose a different subject for its Opposition day debate. It had the chance, if it chose to take it, of debating and moving an amendment in the House of Commons during the scrutiny period.

We are here today debating this Bill for one reason and one reason alone: the previous Administration made a political decision to cede sovereignty and to enter into negotiations to conclude this. I hear noble Lords saying no, and I will come on to that, when they may wish to change their minds. Not one Conservative colleague today said why the previous Government opened negotiations to cede sovereignty in 2022. The then Government did not open negotiations to improve relations or co-operation with Mauritius. They made the principal decision to cede sovereignty, but they still have not said why. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will outline clearly today why that was the case.

All legal considerations on this issue, which have been debated quite a lot during this debate, predate 2022. The complaints received in this debate predate James Cleverly and that Government’s decision. We have had complaints in this debate from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, of the current Attorney-General and the advice given to this Administration. As my intervention on the noble Baroness suggested, the same would have been the case under the previous Government. I assume that when the previous Government made the policy decision in November 2022 to open negotiations which would conclude with the ceding of sovereignty, they were also advised by Attorneys-General. I have a hunch that it might have been the Attorney-General at the time of November 2022, but it could have been any of the three Attorneys-General that the Government had in 2022. No doubt, history will tell us which one of those it was.

A new argument has been presented today by the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Blencathra, that the Conservative Government were powerless and feeble and that their Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries were forced against their will by officialdom to make that statement in 2022. This is the argument of being in office but not in power. It was our suspicion at the time that the Conservatives were in office but not in power, and I am glad noble Lords have confirmed that.

I understand the argument that might say that this is a bad deal or that it has been handled badly. I think that many parts of it remain problematic, and I would have liked the Government to have handled it differently. But that is different from the Conservative Opposition in the Commons, who said in their amendment that they were “implacably” opposed to “ceding sovereignty”. They were not implacably opposed to ceding sovereignty in November 2022, so what changed?

UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Murray of Blidworth

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Mancroft. The issue of the need for and legal underpinning of the Chagos treaty has been the subject of numerous excellent monographs written by a team of authors led by Professor Ekins, professor of law and constitutional government at Oxford, and published by Policy Exchange. My noble friend Lord Robathan referred to the country as having been undermined by human rights lawyers; I can say to my noble friend, “Not all of them”—including, of course, both Professor Ekins and me.

It is clear to my mind that the risk of an adverse judgment and the real risk to the operation of the UK-US airfield at Diego Garcia are overplayed by those who favour this treaty. Mauritius cannot as a matter of international law secure a binding judgment before an international tribunal establishing that it is sovereign over the Chagos Islands, because the United Kingdom is not required to consent to this dispute being adjudicated by the International Court of Justice.

Accordingly, the Government explain their position by saying that they anticipate that another tribunal, specifically the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which has no jurisdiction over questions of sovereignty over territory, will “presuppose” that the ICJ’s 2019 advisory opinion has settled that Mauritius is sovereign and will thus proceed to exercise its jurisdiction in relation to disputes about the law of the sea on the premise that Mauritius, rather than the UK, is sovereign. But there is not a word about sovereignty over the Chagos Islands in that advisory opinion of the ICJ. Moreover, the elements of the opinion that are adverse to the UK’s administration of the islands are, as advisory, not capable of binding the UK to change its position that it had uninterrupted sovereignty over the archipelago for more than 200 years. Hence, any such presupposition by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will be erroneous in fact and law.

So, the fabled rules-based international order, lauded by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, does not in fact require this treaty in the form that it is put before Parliament. I can greatly shorten my remarks by otherwise adopting the remarks we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I share his concerns regarding the obligations that he has set out. I also share the concerns in respect of the Treaty of Pelindaba, in relation to the positioning of nuclear weapons on African soil, raised by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton. The Government have thus far flippantly dismissed that concern without explaining why. Can the Minister set out in detail why Mauritius will not be in breach of its obligations under that treaty if there are nuclear weapons positioned in the Diego Garcia base?

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, became very excited and suggested that my noble friend Lord Callanan had tabled a fatal Motion. If only that were so—unfortunately, even if the House is minded to pass my noble friend’s Motion this evening, it would, pursuant to Section 20 of the CRAG Act 2010, merely require the Minister or another Minister of the Crown to make

“a statement indicating that the Minister is of the opinion that the treaty should nevertheless be ratified and explaining why”.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

The noble Lord is a stickler for accuracy. I quoted Hansard from 3 June when the noble Earl, Lord Minto, said that the Conservatives had tabled a fatal Motion.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

It is an interesting point as to whether my noble friend Lord Minto was correct—