British Indian Ocean Territory
James Cartlidge Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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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.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I am grateful to all colleagues who have participated in today’s debate.
In a week when the biggest domestic issue has been defence spending, there was one thing that we needed from the Government today: transparency. Every penny involved in this terrible Chagos deal will be public money, taken from the pockets of hard-pressed taxpayers. The Government must be straight with the British people about how much money is being spent and on what. The fact is that after the Opposition have raised the cost of the Chagos deal and all the related issues in six separate Defence and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development oral questions, six urgent questions and multiple written questions, points of order and Prime Minister’s questions, we are still none the wiser about how much Labour’s terrible Chagos deal will cost and what its impact will be on the defence budget.
The Prime Minister has led from the front on the complete failure to be open with taxpayers about where their hard-earned money will to go. Yesterday, before the Prime Minister made his statement on defence spending, the Leader of the Opposition was, as is the convention, given a copy of his speech in advance. However, as Mr Speaker made very clear is definitely not the convention, all the key financial information was completely redacted. As an Opposition, we had no chance before the statement to do the sums that would have shown that the claim of a £13.4 billion increase to defence spending was, in the words of Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies,
“playing silly games with numbers.”
The Prime Minister continued to make that claim about defence spending today, despite the Secretary of State for Defence—who, after all, has to spend that budget—saying this morning that the figure is actually £6 billion. Even if the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence are at odds on overall defence spending, they are united with the rest of their Government in total silence about the cost of their Chagos deal.
The Prime Minister was asked by the Leader of the Opposition and my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) three straight yes-no questions today about whether the cost of the Chagos deal would come from the defence budget. Three times, the Prime Minister refused to give a straight answer. Why can the Government not answer that question? Is it because reports in the press are right that the total cost is between £9 billion and £18 billion, not including indexation—potentially three years’ worth of the entire additional defence increase, using the Secretary of State for Defence’s figure, not the Prime Minister’s figure? Or is it much simpler, and the Government know that if the truth about the actual spending figure came out, the public would be aghast? The public understand one basic truth: to lease back a military base for billions of pounds that we currently own freehold makes no sense at all.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the Government have said that they will bring the full details of the deal to the House for discussion and consideration, and that that will include the cost? Does he also not accept that the deal is with President Trump’s team, and that it is right that our US allies consider the details of the deal before they come to the same conclusion as the previous Administration?
James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman is doing well on getting a role as a Parliamentary Private Secretary. This is Parliament. Ever since it started, Parliament’s constitutional role has been to approve money for the Executive, but it cannot carry out that role unless the Government tell Parliament the truth about how much money they are going to spend.
Dr Luke Evans
As the shadow Defence Secretary is aware, it was the Prime Minister who came forward and said how he was going to spend that funding. The Opposition need to know if the defence increase he announced includes the Chagos deal. The Government have made that decision but they have to put it to the House first. It does not make any difference if the announcement has already been made to Parliament, because we are talking about the defence budget.
James Cartlidge
My hon. Friend is right. Why can the Government not tell us whether the Chagos deal will come from the defence spending uplift? It is public money, not the Government’s money. It comes from taxpayers who are already overtaxed, so the Government could at least tell them where the money will come from.
The Chagos deal may make sense through the eyes of internationally focused lawyers and officials responding with utmost caution to the advice they are given, but the Opposition believe fundamentally that sovereignty is not something to be lightly surrendered, including to the United States of America, if I may say so to the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage).
Sir John Hayes
What we do know about the financial deal is that it is linked to inflation. It is therefore inconceivable that Ministers will not have had that modelled. They will have a view about the likely increase in inflation and the total sum involved, and it will be astronomical, which is why they are trying to disguise it.
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend is spot on. They know how much it will cost; they are just not being transparent with public money.
I turn to the speeches made by my hon. Friends. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) made an excellent point of order earlier, in which he made the point that the Minister had said—this is the crucial argument that they depend on—that the ITU could somehow threaten our spectrum at Diego Garcia. Yet, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, the Telecoms Minister was very clear in a written answer dated 12 February:
“The ITU cannot challenge the UK’s use of civilian or military spectrum.”
That is bang to rights.
The most extraordinary point that we have heard today from a galaxy of Government Back-Bench speakers is that somehow the Opposition should not be calling for this debate. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones), the hon. and gallant Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) and the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones) all said that somehow we should be debating important issues, such as buses and so on, yet the argument from Ministers is that this is critical to national security. If that is the case, surely we should be debating it in Parliament. We are going to keep on debating it until we finally get some answers.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) made an excellent point. Along with the shadow Foreign Secretary, I recently had a wonderful and very moving meeting with many Chagossians up in one of the Committee Rooms, and they were clear that they have had no meaningful consultation with the Government and no face-to-face meetings. That is absolutely shameful.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I made this point earlier: the Government’s position throughout all this has moved. First, we were told that this was an absolute legal requirement under international law. When it was demonstrated that there was a get-out for Commonwealth issues, they moved to talking about legal uncertainties, but there can be no legal uncertainties unless they have waived their right to have the Commonwealth overrule the judgment and it becomes an advisory position. Does that not make one understand that they simply do not know what they are doing?
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend puts it brilliantly. He put the question about the waiver and it was ignored, like all the other questions we have asked. We have asked point-blank questions repeatedly—UQs, oral questions and debates—and the Government never answer any of them.
I conclude with this:
“Surrendering sovereignty over the Chagos Islands would be an irresponsible act, which would put our strategic interests—and the interests of our closest allies—in danger.”
Those are not my words, but those of the former Labour Security Minister, Lord West. As Ed Arnold of the Royal United Services Institute put it so rightly on Monday, the Prime Minister
“should shelve his Chagos Islands deal—it is peripheral to the UK’s current security challenges and the money could be better spent on defence.”
The Opposition 100% agree. We believe that this deal is bad for our security and that of our closest ally, the United States. It undermines a military base that is strategically crucial, particularly in the face of the growing threat from China, and above all, it involves the unacceptable notion of paying billions to lease back land we currently own.
It is time that Ministers told us the truth about how much this deal will cost and where the money will come from. They cannot keep redacting when it comes to the cost of Chagos. This is public money, and the public have a right to know the truth.
Catherine West
What this debate has shown is that some Members are finding it difficult to deal with the fact that a treaty is between two sovereign Governments, and that when a Government are operating, they have the right to make negotiations in their own way, particularly with the sort of majority that was achieved last July. Of course, we have to have parliamentary debates and questions have to be asked.
James Cartlidge
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Are there any rules whereby the amount of transparency from a Government should be determined according to the size of their majority?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I think the Member knows that that is not a matter for the Chair. Let the Minister continue.
Foreign Aid Expenditure
James Cartlidge Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Steve Double
I agree with my right hon. Friend. A stat that I read today said that in the UK we spend more on ice cream than we give away in international aid.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his presentation of the debate. My fundamental concern is that we have a twin deficit in this country: a current account deficit that is exacerbated by international aid spending and a public expenditure deficit. Although aid is incredibly worthy—no one would argue with that—can we truly afford to sustain such levels, given the public finances?
Steve Double
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but I believe we cannot afford not to spend money on aid. In the world as it is today, with the many crises and the needs that we meet around the world, it is in the interest of the UK to continue spending on international aid.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Wilson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on introducing this debate and on his excellent speech. There have been many excellent speeches; in fact, I am honoured to follow a very good one.
Across the House the word “pride” is mentioned constantly. Of course it is a source of huge pride that our country delivers this spending target, and that is absolutely right. I have not visited many of the international development projects that other Members have referred to, but I trust what they say entirely. Turning to my experience, my wife and I were in the Sri Lankan tsunami. It was Boxing day and I was standing on a beach when it came in. The very next day, someone with whom I had been swimming in the sea the day before—who confessed he was a Chelsea headhunter—got a box, put it in the middle of the restaurant area and said to every western tourist, “Put every penny you have got into there.” He was British. The British are good at this: we raise money, we are passionate about charitable giving, and I agree with that.
I accept that there is an overwhelming governmental mandate for this policy and I welcome the consensus across the House, but my concern is that there is a danger of complacency. We have a very large current account deficit in this country and a persisting public expenditure deficit in terms of public borrowing. Of course I have immense trust in the predictions of our Chancellor, not least in terms of the outcome of certain decisions we might be making shortly—unlike some—and I am sure we will go back into the black soon, but what if we do not and these issues persist? My personal view is that I would like there to be some consideration, when we protect Government budgets, that we do so on the understanding that some of it comes from a surplus. In other words, that it is clear we can afford it and that we are not borrowing the money and putting charitable spending on a credit card, which worries me.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I do not want to turn this into a political debate because it has been remarkably consensual, but let me tell the hon. Gentleman that I and many of my colleagues could give him a whole list of alternative things that we think the Government could make different decisions about rather than aid spending. He can wait for the Government to be at a point where they can say, “These are now lavish times: these are times when we are actually going to afford for children not to die of diarrhoea or afford for them to go to school,” but we will never reach that moment. He is arguing for the end of aid spending, not something else.
James Cartlidge
It is a political debate, and we have to debate this issue. Of course I am not arguing for the end of aid spending; that is a ludicrous thing to say. Japan, the United States, Italy, Portugal and Spain are not international pariahs and they spend 0.2% of their GDP on aid. That is disappointing, but that is a £8.5 billion difference. When we make a choice in this country to protect DFID when there is a deficit, it is a statement of fact that we will inevitably impose tougher reductions on other Departments. That means things like social care and long-term care of the elderly; we have to be open and honest about that.
That is my concern, especially in this political climate. The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), who is not in the Chamber any more, made the point that she had constituents who were concerned because we have food banks. Many years ago Charles Dickens wrote about telescopic philanthropy: the perception in humanitarian spending that we are prioritising the problems abroad rather than those at home. In those areas where there is an anger at politics and a feeling of disengagement—I fear I know how some of those people will be expressing that shortly—and in this climate we have to be very open and transparent. We have to show the public that we are debating these things and are prudent in our use of public finances.
Albert Owen
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out that charity begins at home, but it does not end at home. We as internationalists have an obligation and people understand that in this country.
James Cartlidge
That is a very fair point. We are in the era of Donald Trump—let us be clear that there is clearly anger out there at politics. We all know that and we therefore have a duty, even if we continue at this level—there is massive support for that and the Prime Minister has an incredibly strong mandate for it—to be seen to be debating it, to be very clear about every aspect of the expenditure, and to hold it all to account. That message must go out strongly and we should not just blithely accept this.
Dr Philippa Whitford
Does the hon. Gentleman not think that we also have a duty to explain what our aid does and achieves and that it is audited in a technical way? We do not actually talk about the fact that polio was nearly eradicated or about peace building in Rwanda. Future wars will be about water, not oil, so we need to include climate change and do the job of explaining to the public what our aid is trying to achieve.
James Cartlidge
I agree, and some other hon. Members will shortly have a chance to do that. I am aware that time is ticking by, so I will simply conclude: I support this, and the passion of our Government and of MPs across the House is very clear. The public must perceive that every aspect of it is prudently held to account and budgeted for. If we saw a deterioration in our public finances or any events coming up that might affect them, it has to be obvious that we would be prepared to examine every item of expenditure and not protect every Department in the way we are at the moment. We can afford to do that now, but we may not always be able to.