Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Leong Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Noble Lords will be aware that I am a proud Ulsterman. Last April, a delegation of Chagossians was welcomed to Northern Ireland on a visit to the Province. I want to let them know that I understand—

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

Order. Will the noble Lord come to a conclusion?

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Leong Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Amendments 11 to 13 not moved.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

Before the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, stands up, I want to make a statement. Noble Lords will be aware that grouping processes are well established. The deadline of 5 pm is always communicated to all Peers when the groupings are sent out. Late degrouping is discouraged, I am afraid. For this group, the groupings were sent out at 11 am with a deadline of 5 pm and no changes were made. The changes sought by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, were requested shortly before 6 pm. There is nothing procedural to stop the noble Lord degrouping the amendments for separate debate during proceedings today—I am sure he is doing so—but it is inconvenient for the Minister, who might not be able to respond to some of his degrouping.

Amendment 14

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his statement, but the Chief Whip’s Office was informed last night of my intention to degroup these amendments. In fact, it wrote to me and to my noble friend Lord Lilley to ask if I agreed with grouping his amendment with this degrouped amendment. Clearly, there was an expectation from the office that it would do that and then, sometime during the day, that expectation was changed. The noble Lord would have a case if the Chief Whip’s Office had been given no notice whatever and did not know anything about it, but clearly it does. As the Deputy Chairman of Committees indicated, notice has been given and there was an expectation that this would take place.

To go on to the issues in consequence—

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I just want to clarify that I have a note here saying that the Chief Whip decided this afternoon. Given how late the change was made, it could not be reflected in Today’s List, which had already been published. I informed the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the degrouping just 10 minutes ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, it is now 10.48 pm. There are not many Members remaining in the Chamber. The next group of amendments is very long and relates to a very important issue, so I invite the Government to resume the House at this stage.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, we are very happy to continue. As I said earlier, the degrouping was done very late. I have been instructed that we have to carry on until the next group.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

I note that, in the supplementary Marshalled List of amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, has two amendments which pertain to the environment. It would be much better if those were attached to the next grouping. Therefore, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, that this is a good point to adjourn.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Leong Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

Could I ask the noble Lord to wind up, please?

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

In the second instance, this difficulty was greatly compounded by the willingness of the Mauritian Cabinet of Ministers to accept £3 million in 1965 to become a party to the forced removal of the Chagossians, agreeing to receive them from the Chagos Islands. Had they been part of the same people civically, this would have been unthinkable, and they would have fought for the rights of their brothers and sisters—not allowing citizens to be subject to this indignity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I gently remind all noble Lords that arguments deployed in Committee should not be repeated at length on Report.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 32, to which I have added my name. Giving the Chagossian people a say before their homeland is transferred to Mauritius is not an unreasonable demand; it is basic justice. At its heart lies the principle of self-determination embedded in international law and central to the United Kingdom’s own foreign policy tradition. Article 1 of the United Nations charter affirms

“the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”.

It is the very principle on which the United Kingdom has relied in relation to the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, where referenda were rightly held and the will of the people to remain British was respected.

Self-determination is not a modern invention. It has underpinned the constitutional settlement of all Britain’s overseas territory. There is no principled reason why it should not apply here. The Chagossians are a people; they have their own language, culture and traditions, and a distinct identity that has endured despite expulsion. Above all, they have a profound and enduring connection to their islands. Despite their expulsion between 1968 and 1973, they have remained a cohesive people, the majority of whom oppose the transfer of their island to Mauritius, as the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, so clearly indicated earlier. It is therefore extraordinary that a Government who claim to champion human rights and the rule of law are asking this House to approve legislation that enables the most profound constitutional decision imaginable for the Chagossian people—the disposal of their homeland—without giving them any opportunity to vote on their future.

As mentioned earlier, even the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has expressed serious concerns about the lack of consultation, calling for the ratification to be suspended and for the free, prior and informed consent of the Chagossian people to be secured. This Government speak readily of historic injustice and reparation. I therefore ask the Minister: why are those principles not applied to the Chagossian people—a people who were expelled from their homeland? This is an injustice. It is an old grievance, and a living one. It shapes how this Bill will be judged, not only by the Chagossians but by the wider world.

International law does not require the silencing of people; on the contrary, it protects their right to determine their own future. To hand over their islands and to extinguish their British-Chagossian identity, without first asking their opinion, would be a terrible injustice, and it would not go unnoticed. It would be remembered by other people, not least those in the British Overseas Territories who look to this Parliament to uphold the principle that their future is theirs to decide. This amendment offers the House a chance to uphold that principle, to break the cycle of exclusion and to begin to right a historical wrong. For the sake of the Chagossians and for the integrity of this House, I urge noble Lords to support the amendment.

Briefly, I also support Amendment 13, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, which states that the Act will come into force

“only once all outstanding legal actions, including appeals, by the Chagossian people have been determined”.

The failure of the Bill in that regard is bizarre. A judicial review challenging the exclusion of the Chagossians from meaningful consultation has been heard, and we are awaiting the judgment, as many noble Lords have mentioned. The arguments have concluded and the ruling is imminent—possibly as soon as 12 January, one week’s time—yet the Government are pressing ahead regardless. This is not a technicality; it is a vital democratic safeguard. Proceeding with legislation and a treaty ratification before the court has ruled raises serious constitutional concerns.

Can the Minister say why this debate has been tabled before the court ruling has been delivered? Why not wait one week? Why has the usual three-day rule between Report and Third Reading been ignored? Other noble Lords raised this point. Do the Government wish to conclude the treaty and lock in the transfer before the court has had its say, possibly in favour of the Chagossians’ right to self-determination? If this is not the Government’s intention, they must explain their actions to this House.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Leong Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Altrincham (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her courtesy and patience throughout this very unusual Bill and its passage through this House. I will make a few remarks on the financial costs.

The treaty makes provision for a financial agreement that requires the UK to make payments to the Republic of Mauritius for the next 99 years. The agreement is very unusual, and that is because the payments are not known. The payments are not known from year 14 for the next 85 years because the payments are linked not to events in the Indian Ocean but to UK domestic inflation. It is an extraordinarily long contract for the taxpayer to be exposed like this to UK domestic inflation.

Inflation in the future is unknown, unknowable and uncapped. That means the payments under this contract are unknown, unknowable and uncapped. Maybe the Foreign Office, in looking at the projections, imagined a very benign opportunity for UK inflation and maybe it hoped that the numbers would stay very low, but if we had inflation as high as it was in this country two years ago, at any point in the 85 years of this contract the payments would get completely out of hand and be completely unaffordable to the UK.

This is why Ministers and Parliament have been poorly briefed on the contents of the treaty and why there is this extraordinary difference between the £3.4 billion accounting valuation, which was done under the Treasury Green Book procedure for UK domestic infrastructure spending, and what this is actually going to cost. As my noble friend Lord Callanan mentioned, the Government’s own internal estimate of the cost is around £34 billion to £35 billion, which is a very substantial amount to be paying.

We might hope, at this stage of the Bill, to have some good advice from the OBR, but the OBR has been quite unhelpful to the Government—and, possibly, to Parliament—and said that it has nothing to do with this. We might hope for clarification from His Majesty’s Treasury. Of course, the treaty was not negotiated by the Treasury; it was negotiated by another department. But, in the middle of the holidays, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury slipped out an announcement on 16 December—it is on GOV.UK—to say that the Treasury would be changing its Green Book methodology. So, we can be sure that the Treasury does not even agree with the accounting valuation, let alone the actuarial true cost of this agreement.

When the Minister said to us during the passage of the Bill that the total cost was £3.4 billion—she said it to us in this Chamber—it was not correct, because the total cost is not known. That needs to be corrected in the treaty, because it is quite clear that that is the intention of the Government. The Government wish, for their own reasons, not well understood by the Opposition, to pay the Republic of Mauritius £3.4 billion. It is their intention and it appears to be their understanding—but it is not what is in the treaty.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

My Lords, this is Third Reading. Arguments made at previous—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

This is Third Reading and the noble Lord is repeating what has been debated before.

[Lord Altrincham (Con)]

I will speak briefly to the rest of the amendment.

The amounts referenced in the Chamber and during the passage of the Bill have not been correct. We need to make sure that the treaty is amended to reflect what the Government’s intention is: that it should be a payment of £3.4 billion and not an open-ended economic exposure. Given the extremely unusual and long-dated nature of this contract, we need to make sure the treaty is amended to protect UK taxpayers and, indeed, to maintain confidence in the sovereign credit of the UK.