British Indian Ocean Territory

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I do not know where my noble friend gets this concept of a cover from, except presumably from WikiLeaks. There is no question of a cover; they are completely separate issues. However, when it comes to handling them, we are concerned because we have inherited a situation in which there was certainly a lot of misunderstanding and even ill feeling between us and the Mauritian Government. We are very anxious to talk to the Mauritians again and to try to handle this matter better than it has been handled in the past.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, has the Foreign Office had the opportunity, since the coalition came into office, to discuss this issue directly with the United States Government?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

There are ongoing discussions with the United States Government about this and other matters related to broad defence needs and to the particular problems we are discussing today. So the answer is yes: discussions have been ongoing at various levels.