Chagos Islands Debate
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Lord Katz
Main Page: Lord Katz (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Katz's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(2 days, 3 hours ago)
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Reducing this to who pays rent to whom does not really reflect the nature of the benefit to each country. We have a very close relationship with the United States. We could not be closer in terms of defence, security and intelligence. That is the benefit that we want to gain from this arrangement. It is about keeping people safe. Discussions around rent may be interesting in this Chamber, but I am concerned that we achieve a stable, secure base that we are able to benefit from for our national security in the years to come.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend the Minister is right: the Diego Garcia base is of vital strategic importance to us in the UK and to the Americans. For the avoidance of any doubt, can she tell your Lordships’ House whether the negotiations have included any guarantees over future UK access to the Diego Garcia base?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The whole purpose of the negotiations was to enable the joint base to continue, because we feel that we work very well together as allies. That is the situation that we want to continue.