Britain in the World

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary was absolutely right to pay tribute to his predecessor, the former Member for Richmond (Yorks), because since 2010 we have put the word “Commonwealth” truly back at the centre of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—something that was desperately lacking under the previous Labour Government.

[Mr Hammond]

It was one of the many things that were desperately lacking. I was a little surprised by the comments of the other Miliband—the former Foreign Secretary—last week, because they read like the comments of a man who has never been inside the Foreign Office and has no recollection of the damage that the previous Labour Government did to our foreign policy and its instruments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) on their speeches. Both the Clyde and Portsmouth have made a huge contribution to this country’s influence around the world and it is fitting that the hon. Members spoke in this debate.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Plymouth has an historic place in all this, too?

[Henry Smith]

Plymouth is indeed another great British city that has projected that image to the world. I just wish that my hon. Friend had intervened slightly more than a minute into my speech so that I would have been given a little bit of extra time.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for focusing on the importance of the Commonwealth and the British overseas territories. It is very pleasing to see the flags of the British overseas territories flying in Parliament Square today and I am very proud to have been part of a Conservative-led Government in the last Parliament that put the overseas territories at the forefront of our policy. The Government will, I hope, continue to do so, whether that means ensuring that the people of Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands who wish to remain British have that right defended, or investing in infrastructure such as the new airstrip on St Helena.

This evening, I want to address some unfinished business with the overseas territories—that is, the future of the British Indian Ocean Territory. About a decade ago, many Chagos islanders came to Gatwick airport in the Crawley constituency and, I am pleased to say, settled in Crawley. Crawley now has the largest Chagossian community anywhere in the world. As the House will know, the Chagos islanders, British citizens, were exiled from their homeland in 1968 by Orders in Council and by royal prerogative. The decision did not come through Parliament. A great injustice was done at that time. Of course, we cannot turn back time but we can start to right those wrongs.

I am delighted that the last Government initiated a feasibility study into the resettlement of the British Indian Ocean Territory and I call on the Government to implement that study. There are a number of pilots for the possibility of the Chagos islanders returning. The Chagos islanders were removed from Diego Garcia and some of the outer islands, such as Salomon and Peros Banhos, to make way for a US airbase. That airbase is and has been important for the security of the democratic western world, both in the Soviet era and today with uncertainty in the middle east, but that should not preclude those islanders being able to return to their homeland should they so wish.

I am struck by the fact that in a fortnight’s time we will celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta just a few miles upstream along the Thames. Article 39 states that no person should be imprisoned or exiled without due process, yet I fear that that is what has happened to the British citizens of the Chagos islands. Much has been said about why they should not be able to return, including much about the environmental reasons, and on the 22nd of this month the Supreme Court will determine a case on their right of return. I do not see any issue, however, with allowing subsistence living by a modest number of Chagos islanders back on Diego Garcia and some of the outer islands if possible. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development is in the Chamber because I believe that we can use some of that budget to facilitate the return of the Chagos islanders.

In this 800th year of Magna Carta I hope that the Government’s feasibility study on the right of return to the Chagos islands can finally be implemented so we can right a wrong of almost half a century.