(4 days, 15 hours ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I have just returned, hotfoot, from a very full Mar-a-Lago. I spoke to several members—senior administrators, especially—of the incoming Administration, which will be in the White House in 32 days’ time. Let me assure you that there is very deep disquiet among them all as to what this deal may mean for the long-term future of Diego Garcia and whether such a deal will hold, given the precedent of the deal break over Hong Kong. They also cannot understand why we would surrender the sovereignty of the islands on an advisory judgment from a pretty obscure court. This is about sovereignty, and you keep saying yourself that the sovereignty—
Order. We cannot both stand. When you say “you”, you mean me. I have no ownership of this decision.
That is fair enough, Mr Speaker. If we respect the sovereignty of Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, on the basis that it is what the people want, can we have a referendum of all the eligible Chagossians and let them decide the future sovereignty of the Chagos islands? That, surely, is the only fair solution.
(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons Chamber