Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Jeremy Wright

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, and it is reinforced by the point made by our hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) in reading from the agreement as to how any disputes are resolved. But I want to focus on the position now and the legal justification that the Government have already deployed for the arrangement that they seek to make. My hon. Friend is right that there will be further problems down the road, but there are problems already.

It seems to me that if the position the Government take is as I have set it out and as the Minister accepts that it is, that must be right because it would surely be difficult to argue that, were it not for that legal uncertainty, renting Diego Garcia back from someone else would be better than owning it from a security point of view. So for the Government to persuade us in this House, and indeed the country as a whole, that this is a good deal for Britain, everything turns on the question of legal uncertainty, which Ministers have often referred to as the reason why the treaty, and therefore the Bill, are necessary.

Having spent four years as Attorney General, I am quite familiar with legal uncertainty—there is a lot of it about in Government. It is, I am afraid, invariably the case that whenever a decision is made in Government, someone disagrees with it, and some of those who disagree will be prepared to go to a court and challenge the validity of that decision. Until the court—sometimes until the Supreme Court—has resolved the matter, there can fairly be said to be legal uncertainty about it. Legal uncertainty hangs around Government like the clouds, and it cannot be allowed to paralyse a Government. Nor should that sort of atmospheric legal uncertainty be the only cause of a decision as significant as that which this Government are now making to give up sovereignty over a vital military facility.

There must be something more substantive—more tangible—to the legal uncertainty to which Ministers have referred. Many of us have tried to find out what exactly that is, but with very limited success. Given that, as far as I can tell, the legal uncertainty that is being talked about constitutes the entirety of the burning platform on which the Government rely to justify the Bill and the treaty, surely this House, before we approve either, must be given a proper and clear explanation of precisely what legal jeopardy the Government are acting in response to. In pursuit of that, it is worth having a look at the explanations that Ministers have given so far.

Let us start with the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who of course is now the Deputy Prime Minister. He made a statement on the British Indian Ocean Territory negotiations on 7 October last year. He told the House that the issue of contested sovereignty over Diego Garcia was becoming more acute, and that

“A binding judgment against the UK seemed inevitable”.—[Official Report, 7 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 45.]

Many of us have been asking where that binding judgment might come from. The only court that had by then been mentioned was the International Court of Justice, which had issued an advisory opinion on sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia. Indeed, on this subject it could only have been an advisory decision, because the UK accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ by declarations dated 22 February 2017—I was Attorney General at the time. Those declarations made it clear that the UK did not, however, accept that compulsory jurisdiction in relation to

“any dispute with a Government of any other country which is or has been a Member of the Commonwealth”.

That involves and includes Mauritius, so any dispute with Mauritius before the ICJ could not result in a binding judgment against the United Kingdom. That point has been put to Ministers and, as far as I know, they have not dissented from that analysis.

If the ICJ could not make the binding judgment that the former Foreign Secretary told us was inevitable, which other court might? On that, again, I am afraid that we have not had clarity. On 13 November last year, the Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty)—who I see has the misfortune of having to defend this position once again today—answered an urgent question on the Chagos Islands. He said:

“International courts were reaching judgments on the basis that Mauritius had sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago.”—[Official Report, 13 November 2024; Vol. 756, c. 793.]

The Minister did not at that point say which courts, but I have done some digging, and I think I am supported in my assumption by what the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), said in opening this debate. I think that he may have been referring to a determination made in January 2021 by the special chamber of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea when considering a dispute between Mauritius and the Maldives. Tragically, I do not have time to go into the fascinating detail of that case, but in essence it was a dispute about the delimitation of maritime territory between those two states. The Maldives argued that the special chamber could not determine the case in question because there was an ongoing dispute about the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands between Mauritius and the UK. The special chamber decided, however, that it could treat Mauritius as the coastal state in the dispute before it, because of the ICJ’s advisory opinion on the matter, which it said had legal effect.

If that ITLOS case is what the Government are relying on, I think there are a few problems: first, the UK was not a party to that case; and secondly, the ITLOS chamber was seemingly basing its decision on that of the ICJ, which, as I have already indicated, could not make a binding ruling on the matter. I am not expecting the House, much less the Government, to accept my opinion on this, but it seems to me that, at the very least, the UK would have the basis of a decent legal argument here. It does not seem to be that this ITLOS decision demonstrates that there was no further hope for UK claims of sovereignty over Diego Garcia.

After a bit more prodding, the Government’s argument moves on and introduces the issue of access to the electromagnetic spectrum. On 5 February this year, the Minister of State at the Foreign Office answered yet another urgent question on the subject.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Before my right hon. and learned Friend moves on to the spectrum, may I bring him back to UNCLOS? As I understand it, article 298(1)(a) and (b) give us specific exemptions from UNCLOS judgments across all those areas. That is relevant to the UK in

“disputes concerning military activities…by government vessels and aircraft…in non-commercial service, and disputes concerning law enforcement activities”

in those areas. On that, the Government’s argument on UNCLOS falls, surely.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I will give my right hon. Friend a lawyer’s favourite answer to any question: “It’s complicated.” But here is the point: the only legal analysis being offered here—the only explanation—comes from the Opposition Benches. The Government are not giving us anything. If he is wrong in what he says, we need to hear why from the Minister, but we are not and that is what troubles me.

Online Harms White Paper

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Jeremy Wright

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I agree with much of what she says. She asks some good questions, which I will try to answer.

It is important that we have a regulator that is properly resourced. I said that it was our intention to ensure that the industry pays for that regulator, which is of course what one would normally expect, but whether that is predominantly through a levy or fine income is a question we have asked for views on in the course of the White Paper. We look forward to hearing what people have to say. I am open to persuasion either way, or a combination of the two might be the best way to proceed, but obviously the weight of payment must be with the industry.

The hon. Lady asks whether the regulator will have the weight of law behind it. It will. As I indicated, we will need to legislate to set up the regulator; it will need statutory underpinning. I hope that she will be supportive of that effort when we bring legislation before the House.

The hon. Lady makes a good point about online abuse of women and girls in particular. One of the reasons that I am so keen to see this process continue is that if we do not give the citizens of this country the opportunity to speak up online, to participate in the debate on what is now one of the central forums for debate, we will lose a huge number of powerful voices in the course of making our country a better place. To women —young women in particular—who feel that that is a hostile environment in which to participate in debate, we have a particular duty. I believe that the regulator will help us to fulfil that duty.

The hon. Lady mentions codes of practice. She might not yet have seen that the social media code of practice is published alongside the White Paper, so that document is now available and I hope that online companies will start to take clear account of it. The work that the Home Office will now do will specifically be in relation to child sexual abuse and to the promotion of terrorism. Because of the seriousness of the harms, we believe it is appropriate for the Home Secretary to have input into the design of the codes of practice.

Finally, the hon. Lady has my assurance that we will continue to work with the Scottish Government. I have already had a very productive conversation with her colleague in the Scottish Government, Kate Forbes. We will seek to take forward that co-operation as we develop the proposals.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on producing something that clearly binds all parts of the House together. There is much to be welcomed. I want to make two quick points. First, at the heart of the problem is the business model for such businesses. Because they are so light touch and therefore bear no responsibility for what they publish, they have in a sense been able to build up companies on the cheap. Making them publishers of their content is the quickest way to achieve our No. 1 purpose, which is to break up what Adam Smith in “The Wealth of Nations” called “cartelling”. May I direct the Secretary of State, as he looks at the legal constraints, to the idea that such businesses should be responsible, as publishers are, for the content on their websites? That would radically change everything. Has he had conversations with his counterparts in the United States to see whether there is commonality of purpose in what he requests?

[Jeremy Wright]

The argument about whether such businesses are publishers or platforms takes up a great deal of time, and not necessarily to great purpose. It is better to ask how we can keep the focus on ensuring that online platforms take responsibility for what they do. We believe that the duty of care is the right method. It will not be sustainable any longer for online companies to say, “We have no responsibility for the harms that may appear on our platforms.” They will instead be required—by law if necessary—to look at what they can do to keep their users safe in any reasonably practicable way they can. If they do not do that, they will find that the regulator imposes sanctions upon them. That seems the right way forward.

I said earlier that it is appropriate for the United Kingdom to lead on this matter, and we should be proud that we are doing so, but I hope that other countries, including the United States, will see how we are approaching common challenges that the United States faces, too, and will seek to adopt similar proposals.

Cairncross Review

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree entirely with what the hon. Lady has said about Kat Lindner. Her death is clearly a great tragedy, not just for her family, friends and partner but for all those who have been inspired by her success in the sport that she pursued.

The hon. Lady made reference to a number of aspects of the Cairncross review. She is right to say that we should insist on the platforms taking responsibility for what they can do. One thing they can do is to ensure that the issue of so-called fake news, misinformation and disinformation is addressed robustly. They have the capacity to do that, and as Dame Frances recognises in the review, some good work has been done by the platforms on this, but there is clearly a great deal more that they could achieve. The hon. Lady is also right to say that it is in the interests of the online companies to do that. If they do not do so, they will cause ongoing damage to their reputations, and I know that they will want to take that very seriously.

The hon. Lady mentioned the licence fee concession and its impact on the BBC. She will forgive me if we do not engage in that debate at this point, but I would say that what we expect and hope for from the BBC is something that can be delivered, irrespective of the debate that goes on about the licence fee concession. I know that the BBC is keen to follow up on some of the recommendations in this review and to see how it can help further. The hon. Lady is also right to say that we should pay tribute at every opportunity to those brave journalists who bear witness to what happens not only in this country but around the world, and who, at considerable risk to themselves, take the chance to deliver those messages and bear that witness for our benefit. Marie Colvin and others deserve our thanks.

The hon. Lady rightly picked up the fact that the Cairncross review refers to the possibility of an independent regulator taking responsibility for some of the things that Dame Frances has described. That is something that we are considering in the context of the online harms White Paper, and it might well be that some of the recommendations in this review are best dealt with when bringing forward that White Paper. There will be a Government response, which I think will come in tranches. Some of it will come very quickly, some will be brought into the online harms White Paper, and some will take a little longer.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Following up on what my right hon. and learned Friend said, not only was Gordon Banks the greatest goalkeeper that the world has ever seen, but he was my childhood hero, which is more important.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. The review is overdue and most welcome, and I want to make two particular points about it. First, it is absolutely right to ask for the BBC to be looked at. If a subsidised organisation is able to become a publisher, which it was not prior to the arrival of the internet, then it is now in the same space as others that do not benefit from such a subsidy and have to earn money. That has caused a problem, and we must look at how the BBC operates given the amount of money that it receives and at what damage or problems that causes.

Secondly, I agree with the deputy Leader of the Opposition, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson), that the elephant in the room is the social media companies. Adam Smith makes it clear in “The Wealth of Nations” that this kind of monopoly cartel is damaging to people as individuals and to the functioning of a democratic society. At some point, social media companies will need to be broken up, and the way to do that is to make them publishers and responsible for everything on their sites. Just watch what will happen after that.

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. On the BBC, there is a balance. It is right to ask Ofcom to consider whether further measures ought to be taken to ensure that the BBC is using its position for good, and it is important at least to ask whether it is facilitating good local content or effectively squeezing out good local providers. However, that is a matter for Ofcom. I repeat that the review also rightly praises the BBC, and the local democracy reporting service should be praised and expanded.

Turning to social media platforms, my right hon. Friend will know that the Government are engaged in several overlapping pieces of work, and the online harms White Paper will address many of the issues he describes. There is an ongoing question as to whether it is appropriate to apply the label of publisher to online companies. However, I am less interested in the label and more interested in what those companies do, how we ensure that they fulfil their responsibilities to the users of their services and then, of course, what should happen if they do not fulfil those responsibilities.

Fixed Odds Betting Terminals

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Jeremy Wright

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The last point I was going to make was in relation to the Government’s response to the review. I reiterate that it was not solely about the reduction in fixed odds betting terminal stakes. Important though that is, the report covers several other issues. The hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) asked whether I had seen it. I have—it is here. It is important for the House to recognise not only the substantive decision, but that there are a number of other things that we need to do together to tackle problem gambling in this country. I have no intention of stopping here. I have no doubt that my ministerial colleagues feel the same. I would not expect any other Members who feel passionately about the subject to do so either.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

In May, I was enormously proud of my Government for taking a bold and important decision that put lives ahead of profits. I assumed, after the APPG investigation, that the industry itself recognised that it needed about nine to 12 months to implement this. That would have taken us to April or May next year. The complaints about the delay for another year were specifically about that, not about April next year. I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that it is not too late. For the sake of those people whose lives and families have been destroyed, and many more may yet follow them, I urge him to think again and bring forward the date so that we may end this scourge.