Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 4th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, and particularly his very thoughtful speech today. I say at the outset that I support the Bill as a necessary consequence of the Chagos Islands agreement, which I also support.

I will not deal with the future of the Chagossians or environmental issues today, important though they both are. I will focus on security, but I think that both the British and Mauritian Governments will need to work hard to meet the justified demands of the Chagossian people.

I will not go over all the ground covered by the Minister in her opening speech, but I want to emphasise the importance of the base on Diego Garcia for our security and, more generally, for western security. A simple look at the map shows why it matters so much for our security, and for western security, in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and why security of the base in the years ahead is so important.

For that reason, I continue to think—and, as I have said before in this House, I thought at the time—that it was absolutely right for the previous Government to start intensive negotiations with Mauritius, with the aim of ensuring

“the continued effective operation of the joint UK/US military base on Diego Garcia”;—[Official Report, Commons, 3/11/22; col. 27WS.]

that it was absolutely right for the then Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, to decide, after examining the issue, to continue with the negotiations; and that it is absolutely right for the present Government to conclude them.

As I understand it—and I have listened carefully to the Minister—the agreement will provide us and the United States with the certainty we both need over the future of the military base on Diego Garcia for 99 years, plus another 40 years if we exercise our rights under the treaty. It does not surprise me that our Five Eyes partners—the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand—have welcomed the deal, recognising its importance for their and our security, nor that India, South Korea and the African Union have welcomed it too.

It would, of course, have been nice to have secured the deal without the cost. Some £101 million a year in today’s money is not cheap, and it would build a lot of hospitals. But surely the question is whether paying 0.2% of the defence budget is a price worth paying for the security it brings. I believe that it is.

Finally, it is worth considering the implications of our not agreeing a deal, of continuing with a contested relationship with Mauritius, the UN and the ICJ, and of ditching an agreement that we have reached with, and that has the support of, our Five Eyes partners. I know it is always risky to peer into the future, particularly given today’s uncertain world, but we can be pretty certain that the ICJ and UN General Assembly resolutions condemning us would continue. It is likely that they will be legally binding on us in the future. Could we just ignore that? Yes, we could, but in doing so, in these circumstances, we would be flouting international law. I believe—and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, is listening—that the United Kingdom should be supporting and respecting international law, not flouting it. That has been, and should remain, our tradition, whether under a Conservative or a Labour Government.

May I also say to the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Blencathra—

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

The noble Lord said that we should pursue international law. Does he accept that we have, under the International Court of Justice, an opt-out for disputes between ourselves and Commonwealth countries—or was he going to mention that anyway?

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

I was not going to mention that; I was making the simple point that respect for international law has been, and should remain, an extremely important part of British foreign policy.

I say this to the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Blencathra. When I was in the Foreign Office, serving under the late Lord Carrington and Lord Hurd, I was not conscious that there was a Foreign Office policy and not a government foreign policy. I have to say, I did not have the privilege of serving under the noble Lord, Lord Cameron.

The agreement with Mauritius and the treaty we are now considering respect international law, protect British and western security, have the support of our Five Eyes partners, India and others, and, in my view, unquestionably deserve our support.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

That is an extremely bad principle for international law, because it elevates not the rule of law, not a disinterested forensic process, but the idea that a kind of majority vote of angry anti-colonialist Governments in the United Nations is supreme over the basic legal principles that should govern the international order. That is the international equivalent of an Act of Attainder —a simple vote rather than proper legal process.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, after the history lesson from the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I am tempted to recount my time in Malta in the 1950s or my visit to Djibouti in 1965, but I will resist that temptation—at least this evening.

As I said at Second Reading, I support this necessary and sensible Bill, but I want to pick up something that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said. I do not agree with the proposed Amendment 1 of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, but, as I said at Second Reading, the Government need to give very serious thought to how the rights, interests and wishes of the Chagossians— I say Chagossians in the plural to mean not just those who have written to us from the United Kingdom but those from elsewhere as well—need to be taken very seriously into account by the Government. I look forward to hearing more about the Government’s intentions later in our discussion in Committee.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, for fear of treading on the toes of my noble friend Lord Hannan, I want to add to the debate that took place a moment ago concerning the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, on my noble friend Lord Callanan’s amendment. I invite noble Lords to look at Clause 1. Clause 1(1) provides that the treaty is the treaty that was considered by Parliament. Clause 1(2) expressly provides that:

“When the Treaty comes into force, so do sections 2 to 4”


of the Bill.

The Bill is indivisibly connected to the implementation of the treaty, as the Minister will no doubt tell us in her closing speeches to all the groups that we have today. This is reflected in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill. I commend to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, paragraph 18 of the Explanatory Notes, which sets out in crystal-clear detail that:

“Entry into force of the Treaty is defined in Article 18 of the Treaty, as being the first day of the first month following the date of receipt of the later note”.


There is nothing in the fact that this Parliament has considered the treaty that precludes an amendment of the type advanced by my noble friend Lord Callanan, because it is a statement of the purpose of the Bill. Purpose clauses have become something of a norm in legislation, and there is nothing wrong in principle with such a statement being placed in the Bill. Indeed, the purpose of the second part of his amendment is simply to state, as a matter of fact:

“Nothing in this Act grants or recognises that Mauritius has sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago”.


That statement is absolutely correct. I give way to the noble Lord.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 38A and 38B in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Weir. The amendment before the Committee in my name would require that this Government

“shall seek to permit limited commercial and chartered flights for British Chagossians to and from Diego Garcia, using the existing runway facilities”,

and is of great importance. Like many colleagues have already mentioned, the islanders themselves ought to be at the very heart of this conversation. I was privileged to receive correspondence from many members of the Chagossian community living in the United Kingdom, asking that I reflect their concerns on this issue. I believe this would be a modest but vital step towards addressing the historic injustice inflicted on the Chagossian community.

I shall explain why the Government should accept this amendment and why the Bill in its present form is inadequate without it. Noble Lords will be aware of the history of the British Indian Ocean Territory, and I do not intend to repeat it today. However, we must be continually mindful of what happened to the inhabitants of these islands from 1968 to 1973, then numbering around 2,000: they were removed from their homes so that Diego Garcia could become the site of a UK-US military base.

Since then, the Government have repeatedly recognised that these are British Overseas Territories citizens, some native, but many descendants of deceased islanders who never returned, and the Government have provided certain support measures throughout the years, or so they might contend. Yet, in spite of this, they have failed to take into account the undeniably important right of the Chagossians to have any meaningful access to their former homeland. They have been denied what we consider an expectation to return home at the end of the day.

This amendment is about more than symbolic flights; it addresses infrastructure, reconnection and justice. It taps into the Chagossian people and their campaign for representation throughout this long process, during which His Majesty’s Government have continually left them very much outside in the cold. This amendment would allow limited commercial or charter traffic, especially for the Chagossian community in the United Kingdom. This would not be a wholesale opening of the island, nor would it challenge the base operations; it would simply permit members of the community, many of whom live in the United Kingdom, to visit, reconnect and maintain their culture and family ties to the Chagossian community.

Those opposed to this amendment may argue that additional flights raise security and other major issues. I respectfully suggest that this argument cannot be used to stonewall all access. Instead, this amendment demands a managed, limited and regular scheme—for example, scheduled charters once or twice a year. Under vetting, with government oversight, this is entirely compatible with defence interests. Indeed, recognising the ties of displaced people is part of Britain’s international human rights obligations. The amendment would permit family members to see where their parents were born and to grieve, remember and connect with their roots. That matters more than any of us could ever know. It gives the Chagossian community a tangible and practical link to their homeland. Practically speaking, the Government should include reporting requirements on how many flights, who operates them, capacity and cost. We should ensure a transparent and accountable process. I therefore urge noble Lords to consider this amendment carefully. Without it, the Bill will proceed without a tangible measure of access and leave the Chagossian community with yet another broken promise.

I turn to Amendment 38B in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Weir. In its current form, the Bill fails to provide even the most basic protections for a community whose treatment by successive Governments has been one of the most regrettable chapters in our modern history. The proposal in this amendment is simple. All employment on the Diego Garcia military base must include fair and equal opportunities for the Chagossians as British Indian Ocean Territory citizens, and conditions must be in line with UK labour standards. Those conditions are the bare minimum we should expect for individuals working under the authority of the United Kingdom, particularly in the case of British Chagossians, who have just as much claim to Britishness as we do. Although the Government like to point out that Chagossians can apply for jobs on Diego Garcia, in reality very few have ever had meaningful access to stable, fair and properly regulated employment on the island. Much of the labour force is made up of contracted or sub-contracted workers from elsewhere. Where Chagossians have been employed, concerns have been raised in relation to pay disparity and unclear contractual safeguards. Without explicit protection in legislation, these inequalities will simply continue unchecked. We cannot allow that to happen.

The British Overseas Territories should reflect British values, and those include adherence to UK recognised labour standards. These standards cover fair pay, safe conditions, rest periods, paid leave and protection from discrimination. I completely disagree with the claim that a military base “complicates” and creates a problem for workforce regulations. Civilians work on UK and allied military installations right across the world.

This amendment is about treating the Chagossian community with fairness and basic justice. It is a chance for Parliament to ensure that the community that paid the highest price for Britain’s historical decisions in the British Indian Ocean Territory is no longer marginalised from its own homeland.

This amendment may not ensure self-determination or the maintenance of sovereignty, and nor is it likely to affect the security of the region. But what it does seek to do is to put the Chagossian people first. If the Government are serious about righting the past wrongs, surely, they must begin by guaranteeing equal treatment in employment.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, I will say at the outset that I do not see the need for the amendments we are discussing. However, I do think that responding to and respecting the wishes and interests of the Chagossians is one of the most important and difficult issues facing the Governments of both the United Kingdom and Mauritius.

There is a lot of history to make good here. It is all the more difficult, in that there is no single Chagossian view. There are Chagossian people in Britain, in Mauritius, in the Seychelles and elsewhere, and there are different views among and indeed within the different communities. It would be unwise to think that there is an immediate or straightforward answer to meeting the wishes and interests of these different communities. My guess is that current and future British and Mauritian Governments will be dealing with these questions for quite some time to come.

It is sensible of the Government to ask the International Relations and Defence Committee to look into the issue, and sensible of them to conduct a survey of Chagossian interests and wishes. This is not an easy task. There will be, and indeed already are, doubts expressed about the time and scope of the IRDC’s work. That, I fear, is inevitable, but I hope that the results of the IRDC’s survey and its report will give the Minister some firm ground on which to make her promised statement in due course.

I know that discussions have been going on between the Mauritian and British Governments about the way forward. I hope that one conclusion of these talks will be that the £40 million trust fund to be administered by Mauritius will be administered in the interests of all Chagossians, and in a way that reassures Chagossians, wherever they are now, that their views are properly heard and represented. There is understandable scepticism about this, and it needs to be addressed.

I hope too that the Government will recognise and indeed facilitate the right of return to and resettlement on the Chagos outer islands, and that here too, there will be close and constructive co-operation between the British and Mauritian Governments.

There is a lot of history to put right as far as the Chagossian community is concerned, in Britain and elsewhere. The Government are, I know, fully conscious of that, and I am sure that future Governments will be too. Meanwhile, I hope that this Bill will soon be approved, passed and implemented.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I would certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jay, when he says that the Chagossian people, in the disparate parts of the world in which they live, are not united on many issues. However, one thing on which they are united is their desire for employment opportunities on Diego Garcia, so I very much support the words of my noble friend Lord Callanan.

When I looked at this as a Foreign Office Minister, one of the things that staggered me was the number of people employed on that base from Sri Lanka, India and many other countries. There were occasionally some Chagossians, but there was no comprehensive, well-thought-out framework for Chagossians, be they in Crawley, Mauritius or the Seychelles, to find opportunities for employment in Diego Garcia. It was almost as though there was an underlying desire on the part of both the MoD and the Americans not to employ them on the basis, probably, that they might well go on to claim other rights. There was a lot of concern about whether there would be an issue of self-determination if they went there and settled there. I think my noble friend Lord Callanan’s amendment makes a great deal of sense. This is one issue that the Chagossian people are fully agreed on, and we should absolutely support it.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lord, I beg leave to propose my Amendments 20L, 20N and 20P. In the interests of brevity and immediacy, I will speak only on Amendment 20L, because I have covered the others in previous groups. This is the amendment that requires the Secretary of State to look at the impact of this treaty on other British Overseas Territories and the implications for their sovereignty.

Of course, we are always told in these situations by whoever is in government, “Oh, it’s a unique situation, you can’t compare”. On one level, that is a truism. Of course, all these situations are unique, yet I think it would be extremely naive not to consider the possibility that they will be fallen upon hungrily by people who want a change to the status quo. The idea that even now there are not politicians and lawyers in Buenos Aires or Madrid looking at the implications of this deal and saying, “How can we press this into the parallel arguments that we have for claims over British Overseas Territories?” is utterly fanciful.

They may already be putting out feelers to British lawyers, who seem very happy to work against the interests of the Crown on these questions. The representative of Mauritius in this case gave an interview in which he gloried in the fact that he lived in a country where you could humiliate the Government. If he is not available, perhaps by then the Attorney-General will no longer be in politics, or indeed perhaps the Prime Minister. They also both have long records of working on cases of this kind.

I suspect that the briefs that will be put in front of them will make the claim that Britain has now, in practice, for all that there was no jurisdiction, for all that it was an advisory ruling, for all that Commonwealth disputes were excluded, conceded this extraordinary and perilous precedent that, if a territory was at one time or another ruled from somewhere else, that establishes the basis of a sovereignty claim. I do not think it is completely fanciful for these elements in foreign countries to feel that they will be dealing with sympathetic elements within the United Kingdom.

Indeed, they have had experience of that. If we think of the experience of our relations with Argentina prior to the war in 1982, we can understand why the Argentines felt that Britain was going to move on the subject. We had the 1968 Anglo-Argentine memorandum, which expressly talked about sovereignty being on the agenda. We then had the persistent proposals throughout the 1970s for the leaseback arrangement, and then the withdrawal of HMS “Endurance”. Argentina is a country I know well, and indeed I have had the privilege of visiting the Falkland Islands as well. To this day, I am often told by Argentine politicians that Margaret Thatcher led them on to the punch—that Britain deliberately looked as though it was preparing to withdraw from the islands in order to provoke this conflict. I think that is nonsense. None the less, you can understand why they think that there are sympathetic elements here.

Similarly, if we look at relations between Britain and Madrid in the run-up to the Córdoba agreement over Gibraltar, the 1990s were a time of constant proposals from this side for some kind of joint sovereignty. It was only a referendum of the Gibraltarian people that put a stop to that process. By the way, it was a referendum that official Britain detested and for a long time did not reconcile itself to and ignored, until it became politically impossible and a new dispensation was reached. So, yes, this will be looked at in Buenos Aires and Madrid.

It will be looked at, I am sure, by those in Nicosia. They will think that there is an extremely close parallel there, in the sense that this is a military installation rather than an ethnically separate population. Again, they will say “This was ruled from somewhere else and we have a claim”. When I was a Member of the European Parliament, I would often get petitions and resolutions from Greek Cypriot MEPs raising the issue of the base.

What all these claims have in common is that final resolutions are never treated as final by the other party, any more than the final and binding resolution was with Mauritius in 1965. I do not want to bore noble Lords on this, but I feel it bears repetition. Mauritius trousered a large sum of money in exchange for perpetually renouncing any claim over the Chagos Islands.

In fact, there are very few British Overseas Territories that have not at some point been ruled from somewhere else. In addition to the ones I have mentioned, I was listing just now which ones have at some point had some other seat of government. Cayman, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos, St Helena and Montserrat were all, at some point or another, ruled by someone else. All of them will be looking at this as a precedent and a claim.

What all our overseas territories have in common is that they are all content with their present status. The British Empire was unusual in the peaceful and voluntary nature of the way it was relinquished: not completely, not universally—there were tragic exceptions in Cyprus, India and Kenya—but they were the exceptions. They were not the rule. Decolonisation in Malaysia was a perfectly peaceful process, for example. The only argument was about whether the British should stay longer to defeat the Communist insurgents. It was a generally peaceful process in the Caribbean and in most of Africa, so the places that have stayed are the places that wanted to stay, and they made that very clear, in the cases of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar in quite recent memory, with overwhelming referendums. It seems to me that they will now be looking to those referendums as their one shield: the only thing that potentially distinguishes them. But of course they will be vulnerable to the argument that, if we are treating Mauritius rather than the Chagos Islands as the unit, why should we not treat all of Cyprus as the unit, since that was once partitioned in a similar way at the time of independence? They will all be extremely alarmed by that precedent.

It seems to me there is only one way of reassuring these countries, which is to allow a referendum of the Chagossians, dispersed and scattered as they may be. Then, if the Chagossians vote in favour, it does not matter. We would not be setting any precedent. We would be following the principle of self-determination. If the Chagossians vote to be Mauritian, that is of no concern to Gibraltarians or Falkland Islanders or anyone else, because the principle of self-determination would be upheld. But at least let us give them the vote.

We are privileged in this country to be custodians, stewards, of a largely maritime sovereign area. If we put together the oceans around our overseas territories, they are about the same size as India. We are in charge of some of the richest and most important marine environments, and that is our real string of pearls. The pearls are there because in every case they want to be on the string. Let us not set the precedent of tearing one of those pearls off and hurling it away in defiance of the wishes of the people most involved. I beg to move.

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, in his remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, has tried to pre-empt the comments that I was about to make. I remember well the Falklands War in 1982. I remember many negotiations with Spain about Gibraltar. I remember the struggles with China over Hong Kong. I remember discussions about the future of the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands—both of which I have visited—as well as discussions about the future of St Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, Anguilla and the sovereign territories in Cyprus. In each case, the discussions took place on the basis of the interests of each sovereign territory concerned and I believe that that will remain the case. I cannot see why this treaty over the British Indian Ocean islands and the Chagos Islands will affect the discussions that we will have with our other overseas territories about their futures. I think that the situation will remain as it has been in the past, so I do not feel that I can support this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannan.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I certainly do support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. I will be very brief. The amendment on which I want to focus is not one regarding referenda and consulting the Chagossian people, even though that is very important. Amendment 20L simply states—and I would be surprised if the Government could not accept this—that the Secretary of State needs to come up with a report

“assessing the potential implications for other British Overseas Territories that would arise from this Act and the Treaty”.

What is wrong with that amendment? Nothing. It would cost the Foreign Office a certain amount of time and effort to put together a report but, in the context of what has been said—at Second Reading, in the debate that we had on the treaty, on the first and second day in Committee—it is not asking a lot.

The noble Lord, Lord Jay, was looking specifically at the interests of the citizens in those different territories. He has a huge amount of knowledge, wisdom and experience, and what he said made a huge amount of sense. What he perhaps did not address is the signals that this Bill, if it becomes an Act, and the treaty, will send to other countries. The noble Lord, Lord Hannan, made some specific points about Argentina—where we know that the dispute will not go anywhere; it will go on and on—as well as Gibraltar. I will also mention one other territory that could well—