Chagos Islands: UK-US Defence Relationship

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

As a long-standing Member of this House, the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with how treaties are debated and agreed by this House. After signature, they come forward for ratification. This process was started a number of years ago by the Government that he supported. Eleven rounds of negotiation have taken place. We have secured a deal that is in support of the UK and US base on Diego Garcia, which will continue to operate well into the next century. When he and others see the detail of the deal, I am sure they will back it.

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

It is hard to imagine anything said from that Dispatch Box over the past five months that has survived contact with reality, and this is no different. In the tripartite relationship between the United States, the United Kingdom and Mauritius, two of those partners now have doubts about this arrangement, so what is the unseemly rush about? In the tension between national security and the human rights of the Chagossians, this Government, as usual, have managed to reconcile neither.

[Luke Pollard]

I am not certain whether the SNP’s record on national security really gives the hon. Member the platform that he is pretending to have on this one. I recognise, however, that he is trying to make a serious point about the deal. When the deal is signed, it will come before the House in the usual way. That will allow parliamentarians of all parties to look at the detail of the deal and take a judgment, and the House will vote in the usual way, as it will do on other treaties.