British Indian Ocean Territory
Debate between Anneliese Dodds and James Cartlidge(1 day, 16 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Anneliese Dodds
No, I will not take another intervention from the right hon. Gentleman. My response was very clear.
On the subject of inaccurate speculation about the cost of the treaty, Prime Minister Ramgoolam has confirmed that the reports of a doubling in value are completely false. The overall cost of the deal has not changed from that negotiated with the former Mauritian Prime Minister. There have been some changes in the financial arrangements—
Anneliese Dodds
I was just about to come on to that. There have been some changes to enable a limited element of front-loading, but the overall net present value of the treaty payments, which accounts for the impact of indexation, is not higher than it was. I will not press this point, because it would be very unfair to Opposition Members, but surely, when they talk about economic illiteracy, they are not falling into the trap of confusing timing with magnitude, because there is a pretty obvious difference between the two.
We will provide more information on the departmental budgetary impacts in due course. The details will be set out when the treaty is laid before Parliament. We are seeing more bizarre claims about this issue even just within this debate. Frankly, we heard wild enough ones earlier when the Leader of the Opposition had her say, and the Prime Minister explained that she was wide of the mark. Of course, as colleagues would expect, any funding arrangement and the departmental split of any costs arising from the treaty with Mauritius will be finalised through the spending review. I have to say that I am used to hearing some pretty wild maths from the Conservatives, and we had the true Tory kamikaze Budget of course, but they are surpassing themselves, because it is ridiculous to compare—
Anneliese Dodds
I will continue to explain why the Conservatives cannot compare speculative figures for the lifetime cost of a 99-year-long agreement to protect our national security with an annual uplift to defence spending that is the largest since the cold war. There is clearly a difference of many orders of magnitude, and I feel that they really need to reflect on the bizarre claims they are making.
Although this has necessarily been a state-to-state negotiation, with our priority being to protect the base, we recognise the importance of the islands to Chagossians, and we have worked hard to ensure that this agreement reflects the importance of the islands to Chagossians. Some may say that it is farcical to talk about Chagossians, but I do not believe it is farcical. As we have already announced, we will finance a new trust fund for Mauritius to use in support of the Chagossian community. We will work with Mauritius to start a new programme of visits for Chagossians to the Chagos archipelago, including to Diego Garcia, and Mauritius will be free to develop a programme of resettlement on the islands, other than Diego Garcia.