Chagos Islands

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

As my noble friend says, the Chagossian people have been badly treated since the very beginning of all of this. This is an agreement that has been reached between the United Kingdom and Mauritius as states, but he is right to highlight that it is important that the Chagossians are included in our thinking on this. They will be able to return to Diego Garcia on visits again, and the Mauritians will enable a programme of returning to some of the outer islands. It is a better position for the Chagossians than they have at the moment, but I accept—and we are completely open about the fact—that it will not give the Chagossian communities everything that they have wished to see since they were forced to leave.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I will inform the House that there were 11 negotiations under the previous Government, and continuity counts— I can vouch for that. The main reason why there was no agreement was the issue of security. I seek the Minister’s assurance on that point. Also, under the new Prime Minister of Mauritius, there has been some disagreement over the possibility of the extension of the 99-year lease by another 40 years. I would welcome the Minister’s insights as to where the negotiations have got to on that point.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The thing with the new Governments is that they like to look at things afresh, and it is absolutely right that they are able to do that. The noble Lord will be reassured to know that we have managed to iron out the differences that there were, and the Government of Mauritius, the UK Government and now the US Government, it would seem, are content to proceed.