British Sovereignty Protection (Chagos Islands) Bill [HL]

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Friday 23rd October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, on tabling this Bill and on his brilliant introduction of it. It is a very good, comprehensive and comprehensible Bill. When a Bill is lucid, it is a symptom of the clarity and sensibility of the objectives enshrined in it.

This Bill should not be necessary, but it is, because the Foreign Office has, to put it mildly, failed to appreciate our obligations to the Chagossian people, the rights of the Chagossian people and the strength of our legal right to the Chagos Islands. It is not just that possession is nine-tenths of the law; the remaining tenth of international law puts us in a rock-solid position. It should not be necessary to repeat that legal position, but it is.

First, the ICJ ruling was advisory, not binding. Secondly, it was based on a General Assembly resolution, which is not binding. Thirdly, when we signed up to the ICJ, we excluded the disputes between ourselves and the Commonwealth from its jurisdiction. Fourthly—this has not often been mentioned—in 2012 the Cameron Government extended that exclusion to include disputes with former member states of the Commonwealth, so that, should Mauritius try to get round it by leaving the Commonwealth, that could not happen. The Foreign Office then believed that the exclusion was strong and valuable, and made it more solid still.

Fifthly, the Foreign Office subsequently invoked the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and its tribunal. However, that tribunal cannot rule on sovereignty or on military matters—and nothing could be more military than the Diego Garcia base. Sixthly, the Foreign Office none the less said that if we fail to ratify the agreement with Mauritius, we could face a binding verdict within weeks. Well, quite a lot of weeks have passed. Seventhly, it then said that just waiting for a binding verdict would weaken our negotiating position. Indeed, the ultimate verdict might weaken our negotiating position, but since its case was based on the assertion that we have no sovereignty, it is hard to see how any verdict that ratified it would weaken our negotiating position at all.

Eighthly, the Government’s final claim is that a verdict might prompt other states to withhold supplies and services, which would render the base inoperable. When I have asked, “What supplies? What services? From what countries?”, they have refused to answer. They have also refused to acknowledge that if the base could be rendered inoperable by countries withholding supplies and services, that would be equally true after any transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius. If these unidentified other countries objected to the use being made of the base by us or by the Americans, they could presumably render it inoperable by withholding these unidentified supplies and services. Nor will the Government indicate whether they have pointed this out to the Americans.

The ninth and final weakness of the position of the Foreign Office was that it had overlooked our binding legal obligation to the Americans to secure their agreement to any transfer of sovereignty before signing the deal. It had gone ahead and signed the deal with Mauritius without getting a rock-solid agreement from the Americans.

All this ignores the crucial issue—which should not be ignored—of the Chagossians themselves. The General Assembly resolution—on which both the ICJ’s advisory ruling and the government position are based—says that in the process of decolonisation, territories cannot be split up. It is a moot point whether Chagos was ever part of the same territory as Mauritius. In any case, the UN allows for inhabitants to choose to separate if they are given a vote on the subject, as we did to the inhabitants of what were then the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, now Kiribati and Tuvalu. The inhabitants of Ellice Islands, now Tuvalu, voted overwhelmingly to separate—there were just 4,000 votes cast, but 92% of them were for separation and that separation was effected.

More recently, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has ruled—it is not binding, but it is a UN ruling—that we should delay the agreement with Mauritius to consult the Chagossians. The Government argue that there is no Chagossian population—or certainly there was not until recently—but we give expatriates from the UK a vote in our elections, even though they have voluntarily removed themselves from residence in this country for a period. Should we not, as this Bill does, give the Chagossian people, who were forcibly removed from their country, a vote on the future of their country? The only reason they have all been abroad until recently is because they were deported and because it was made very difficult for them to return. Some have done so, despite all the obstacles put in their way, and they have been there for some months. This Bill will allow permits to visit and reside in the Chagos Islands, except Diego Garcia, though hopefully the Americans would give priority for working on the base to Chagossians living in the islands or from elsewhere.

Resettlement was considered by the previous Government and thought to be practical but at a cost. However, that cost is a fraction of what it is proposed that we hand over annually to the Mauritians. Resettlement is feasible, it is less costly than the agreement with Mauritius and it is happening. That changes the whole legal, moral and economic position on which the Government’s approach to this problem is based.

I will end with some questions. First, do the Government accept that the proposed agreement with Mauritius does not give Chagossians a right of return? The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was, I am sure, speaking in good faith—I have the utmost respect for the noble Lord, who is a man of integrity—when, on 14 April, he said in this House, replying to my question:

“What is proposed in the treaty”


with Mauritius

“allows a right of return for Chagossians to islands other than Diego Garcia”.—[Official Report, 14/4/26; col. 269.]

Will the Minister confirm that that is not the case? It gives the Mauritians the power to allow return or settlement by Chagossians or others, but no obligation to do so or to ensure that it is for Chagossians.

Secondly, if the Chagossians do return in any number, will they automatically have the right of self-determination as is normally the case under UN rulings?

Thirdly, do the Government accept that the rights of Chagossians, both resident and forcibly removed, override the basis that they originally gave for reaching this agreement that they have concluded with Mauritius—and if not, why not? If not, we can only conclude that they are continuing where the negotiation began through sheer ignorance of the whole legal position of the British state—in the spirit of “University Challenge”, “I have started so I will finish”—or because the anti-colonial ideologues on their own Benches, combined with the FCO’s traditional determination to rid itself of all of our overseas territories is dominant in their thinking?