Diego Garcia Military Base

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I can indeed, and my right hon. Friend is right: this deal will cost less than 0.2% of the defence budget. It compares very favourably with the €85 million that the French paid for their Djibouti base, which by the way is right next to a Chinese base. Diego Garcia is 15 times bigger than the French base in Djibouti and has an exclusion zone around it, which helps to protect our operations and the intelligence services that we have there. My right hon. Friend is right: this is a good investment for the future national security of this country.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

This morning, I was at the High Court to listen to the judgment. I was with a very large group of Chagossians, who told me that they feel betrayed. They also feel that the United Kingdom is acting in exactly the same high-handed, colonial-like manner that led to their dislocation and displacement from the islands in the 1960s. Can those on the Government Front Bench assure us all that when this deal comes back to the House, we are not going to be asked to vote for a new round of colonial practice that will further disadvantage the Chagossians?

[John Healey]

Of course we are not going to ask that. We deeply regret the way that the Chagossians were removed from the islands. We have expressed that sentiment as a new Government since July. We have made provisions in the treaty to support the Chagossian communities, but the hon. Gentleman will recognise that there is a wide range of views within the Chagossian communities and groups. Some of them see the value of this deal, and some of them support it. The important fact for us is that the legal challenge in the High Court demonstrates some of the legal difficulties that would continue to bedevil the operation of this base without the deal that our Prime Minister has signed today.