British Indian Ocean Territory

Debate between Luke Evans and Julian Lewis

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Evans]

Fundamentally, the US should express its concerns publicly, and it has now done so. We have asked Ministers, both in this debate and on Monday, whether the UK Government can make a unilateral decision without amending the notes. The Government have said that they have to amend the notes, but they have not set out what happens if the US does not agree. That is the key part of this, but the Government keep reading out the same answer that I got on Monday when I asked that question, the same answer that I got when I intervened on the Minister, and the same answer that my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) got. They say that they have set out the process, which is primary legislation, secondary legislation, and then amendments to the notes. The question is: what happens if the Americans do not agree to that amendment of the 1966 notes? I will take an intervention if the Minister can tell us, because the fundamental point about US involvement is this: if they say no, but we say yes, where do the islands go? What happens to the agreement? What happens if they say yes and we say no? Those fundamental questions are why we keep coming back to this issue. If there was clarity and simple answers to simple questions, the Opposition would understand that and be able to make a balanced judgement. Instead, we have gaps in our understanding from the Government.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, but I think he knows the answers to those simple questions. The answer to the question whether Mauritius could stop us having nuclear weapons stored on Diego Garcia is clearly that it would be able to do so. It is clear that the answer to what happens if the Americans say no to changing the 1966 agreement is that this deal to get rid of our sovereignty over the Chagos islands would be dead in the water. The reason that Ministers will not say those things, even though they know them to be true, is that they are afraid of a headline saying, “Minister admits that Chagos surrender can’t go ahead without American agreement”.

[Dr Evans]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right in pinpointing some of the issues, and I will reverse my speech and deal with some of those first. On the 1996 Pelindaba treaty, formally ratified in 2009, although the whole treaty is about where countries can research and what they can do with nuclear weapons, the key part, article 4, is about the prevention of parking of nuclear explosives. Paragraph 1 states:

“Each Party undertakes to prohibit…the stationing of any nuclear explosive device”

on its territory. By definition, if the base goes across to Mauritius, it will be under the treaty, because Mauritius is a signatory. There is a slight misconstruing, because there is a specific carve-out. Paragraph 2 states:

“Without prejudice to the purposes and objectives of the treaty, each party in the exercise of its sovereign rights remains free to decide for itself whether to allow visits by foreign ships and aircraft to its ports and airfields”,

and it goes on.

What the treaty implies, and what it states specifically, is that Mauritius would have to be consulted and provide explicit permission for nuclear craft, whether submarine, boat or aircraft, to be there. Only yesterday we heard that that permission would not be granted. This question on the security of the nuclear aspect is unanswered, and I look forward to the Government trying to rectify that position, because they have not explained the interaction with the treaty. This is not operational; it is purely about legal text.

[Dr Evans]

Absolutely. On a technicality, the Minister is right to say that the treaty in front of us has no problems, but at the end of the day it is about the interaction with other treaties once we have signed it and sovereignty has been given away. My hon. Friend is right that things would not be covered once Diego Garcia no longer belonged to us, and the Government are struggling to explain that difficulty.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I must tweak what my hon. Friend just said. Although there is discretion for the Mauritian Government to give permission for a nuclear-armed vessel to visit temporarily, for example, there is no discretion for nuclear weapons to be stored permanently on Diego Garcia.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Luke Evans and Julian Lewis

Committee of the whole House
Monday 20th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Evans]

I would be interested to hear an answer to that, as we have tried several times to get the Government to quantify whether China is a threat, a friend, an ally or a foe.

Amendment 7 tries to look at

“an analysis of the status of UK’s sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory under international law;”.

From talking about this previously, we know that UNCLOS, which is often used as the example of why we have to secede the territory, cannot preside over sovereignty, as was said in 2015 when dealing with the marine protected area. We have also heard the Government stress the importance of the International Telecommunications Union, saying that the issue is to do with spectre and spies. However, we know that there is a carve-out, because we heard about that on Second Reading.

That leaves us with the International Court of Justice, which is often held up as the key point. On Second Reading, I was taken by the fact that it is alleged that we have an opt-out under the Commonwealth, so I went away to have a quick look. On the ICJ website, as hon. Members can see, the “Declarations recognising the jurisdiction of the Court as compulsory—United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” were published on 22 February 2017. I quote:

“1. The Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland accepts as compulsory ipso facto and without special convention, on condition of reciprocity, the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, ln conformity with paragraph 2 of Article 36 of the Statute of the Court, until such time as notice may be given to terminate the acceptance, over all disputes arising after 1 January 1987, with regard to situations or facts subsequent to the same date, other than:”—

these are critical points—

“(i) any dispute which the United Kingdom has agreed with the other Party or Parties thereto to settle by some other method of peaceful settlement; (ii) any dispute with the government of any other country which is or has been a Member of the Commonwealth;”.

That is there in black and white.

However, the Government have yet to mention that in any of debates or letters about their legal position. We need amendments 1 and 7 to be able to understand why the Government do not see that as a strong enough argument to hold up. This nonsense about whether or not there are negotiations is answered there too, because those declarations say:

“any method of peaceful settlement”.

Any good Government would try to resolve the dispute in a peaceful manner.

I am surprised at that from a Labour party whose Members pride themselves on being trade unionists, who make a living from negotiating and trying to come to a solution without the matter going to a court. That is exactly what they should be doing, but the Conservatives are being chastised for trying to have a conversation to resolve the situation. The fact was that we did not come up with a deal because the deal was not good enough.

The Labour Opposition moved into power and have now put forward this horrendous Bill that gives away power, but at what cost? They are not even going to try in court or use some of the simple arguments which I, as a doctor, have found after spending time researching. I am sure that in this great country we have many legal buffs that could put forward that argument, but if the government do not feel that it stands, they should come to this House and tell us why—put it in evidence, write it out and tell us all, and we will go quietly. However, we are not hearing or seeing that from this Government, which is why we need amendments 1 and 7.

Turning to amendments 3, 4 and 6, as has been rightly pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness it is clear that the Bill gives carte blanche to this Government, or any other, to do whatever they want. We may as well not even bother having a debate about the Bill—it is not worth the paper it is written on—because the Henry VIII powers mean that Ministers can do what they will, when they will without coming to Parliament. At least these amendments try to ensure some accountability of the Executive to this House, because this House should be making these decisions, especially given their magnitude. We have heard from the Government that it is a priceless base and we have heard from the Conservative Benches about its geopolitical and security importance. Should the House not be making decisions about what that looks like?

New clause 1 talks about the payments. On Second Reading, I asked the Minister whether he could give me any example, from any part of the world, of when we have dealt with sovereignty using net present value. He said it was in the Green Book, but that is for domestic sites and used by the Treasury to look at civil development. I hope the Minister has gone away and done some research, because I think he will find that there is not a precedent, as net present value is not the correct measure and is open to political interference. For example, we use 3.5% and America uses 7%. We can fudge the numbers to fit the narrative that we would like to set.

There is one other problem. The explanatory notes stipulate only 30 years. Unless I have misquoted, this deal goes for 99 years, so what happens in the remaining 70 years? That is why new clause 1 would bring in a robust check to ensure that when the finances are paid out, we know exactly why we are paying, who we are paying and what we are paying for. Most importantly, we would know the mechanism of how the finances were calculated, because the Government still have not come to this place and set that out exactly.

Let me turn to new clause 2. What happens at the end? I raised that as my final point when I spoke on Second Reading. We have heard about long-term security, but in this place we think only on a five-year cycle; this is a 99-year cycle. My biggest fear is that my children’s children’s children, if they are ever elected to this Parliament, will be having a debate in 99 years with the same issues about what happens. It is a dereliction of duty on our behalf in this House not to think things through.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I am surprised that nobody has referred to Hong Kong. When the decision was taken and the agreement was reached in 1984 for the handover in 1997, China agreed that it would be “one country, two systems” for at least 50 years. Within less than half that time, Britain came to the conclusion that all those safeguards were being deliberately violated.