British Indian Ocean Territory and the Chagos Islands

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

I had the privilege of travelling to the islands last November during a two-year stint as a Minister for various parts of the world, including the overseas territories. My views are personal and not those of Her Majesty’s Government, but they are based on two years of looking into the matter. I certainly read every word of the KPMG report and every piece of consultation that came across my desk very fully, and I have spoken to all the key people involved.

We cannot undo an historic wrong, but we can mitigate it. In all candour I must say to hon. Members that I do not believe it is right to repopulate the islands as part of that mitigation, but there are things we can do. I want to explain why. I visited Diego Garcia, the military base that formed a part of the main island, and I visited the part of the island that does not have a military base and the outer islands. During my five-day visit I slept in a bed for 15 minutes; the rest of the time I spent travelling. The time that I got to actually do any visiting was quite small.

I mention this because it was a very expensive trip to get there. This is the line of route that everyone will have to take, as will every block of cement, every video recorder or TV, or—in many cases—the foodstuffs we will have to take. I travelled via Singapore and Bahrain on a military flight. I then travelled on a rough fishing vessel for nearly 20 hours to get to the outer islands, where I got on to a military RIB that was able to conduct assaults on islands. We were unable to get on to the island and we had to jump into the water to wade to the outer islands that had coconut palms right up to the beach and there was foliage hanging off the beach area into the water. I am not saying one could not populate the islands, but the concept that the outer islands are an idyllic possibility is for the birds. They were difficult, overgrown, humid areas that were accessible only where the Marines had gone in and chopped down foliage.

I asked to look at a memorial that was put there and I asked whether we could cut through to the cemetery, which was a depressing place with lots of small graves of children and babies. When the outer islands were depopulated, they were very difficult places to live. Had it not been for the British Government depopulating those islands, I am not sure how viable they would have been within five years, given the only revenue stream was coconut oil, which was already declining. It was difficult to support life even at that time.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

rose—

[James Duddridge]

I will try to give way in a second if I can.

On the main island, the military element of the island is not just a runway. There is space for tens of thousands of troops to be potentially deployed on hard standing. In the conservation area going up into the old town, the houses are falling apart. There is no real infrastructure there at all. I met British and American military there. During the whole of my trip I was with Americans and Brits. I am unequivocal as to the American position on a political and diplomatic level.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and to speak on this matter in Westminster Hall for the second time. The first was exactly a year ago, in the debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan), who sends his apologies that he cannot be here today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on securing the debate, on giving us a comprehensive introduction to the current situation and on replacing the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—I am sure some Labour Back Benchers wish that that was as easy in all circumstances as he appears to have found it.

This has been a comprehensive debate. To leave plenty of time for the Minister to respond, I will dwell briefly on just a few points: resettlement of the Chagos islanders as a human rights issue; the weakness of the various arguments that we have heard against resettlement; and a couple of broader questions about the sovereignty of the islands and their use as a US base.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said, the Scottish National party clearly stands for the principle of self-determination. It is great to hear so many Conservative Members standing up for that principle today, and I hope they will want to endorse it again if the Scottish Parliament considers another referendum Bill. We have stood in solidarity with the Chagossians for a long time; indeed, in 2004 my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) said in this Chamber:

“The more we discover about the matter, the more disgraceful, underhand and thoroughly disreputable the long-term treatment of those few thousand people is shown to have been.”—[Official Report, 7 July 2004; Vol. 423, c. 277WH.]

That disgraceful treatment continues to this day, at the cost of the United Kingdom’s reputation as a defender of fundamental human rights. We remain guilty of double standards and hypocrisy; as was said earlier, if the eviction took place today, it would be considered a breach of fundamental human rights under international law.

In 2009, the right hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson), who was then a shadow Foreign Office Minister, said in this Chamber:

“There is no doubt that there is a moral imperative.”

He mentioned

“what I suspect is the all-party view that the rights of the Chagossian people should be recognised, and that there should at the very least be a timetable for the return of those people at least to the outer islands”—[Official Report, 23 April 2009; Vol. 491, c. 176WH.]

That was the Conservative position in 2009; it would be interesting to hear whether it still is, now that the Conservative party is in actually a position to do something about it.

We have heard a number of objections about the feasibility of resettlement, not least from the former Minister, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge). I say to him with the greatest respect that there may well be logistical challenges to resettling people on the islands, but—as the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) said—this is about their right to return almost as much as it is about whether they do return. As for logistics, there is a US naval base, which I presume has electricity and running water, on the island. If it is possible for the United States Government to build such a sophisticated base of operations in such a remote location, surely it is possible for people to choose to make their own lives on the island in the way that their ancestors did for generations.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for the fact that I could not be here for the start of the debate. Hon. Members will recall my position on the matter as the shadow Foreign Office Minister in the last debate: I am a strong supporter of righting this historical injustice. With respect to logistics, we have been able to move ahead with building an airport in St Helena, and we have done many other things in the overseas territories that have cost an awful lot and have been logistically difficult.

[Patrick Grady]

Absolutely. I do not think any of this is beyond the wit of man. The point has been made several times that if the Government diverted some of the money they spend on litigating the issue towards helping the people they forcibly removed to resettle in their own homes in their ancestral territory, the infrastructure issues could be overcome.

I am excited to hear what the Minister has to say about the US position, given the differing views we have heard on what that might be, but perhaps we should flip our perspective. Perhaps we should think about not whether resettlement is a barrier to US activity, but whether US activity has to get in the way of resettlement. Those things ought to be able to co-exist, although perhaps there are questions about the US use of the area as well. The former Assistant Secretary of Defence under Ronald Reagan, Lawrence Korb, has said that there is “no good…reason” to oppose the Chagossians’ return. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun said, yachtists seem to visit the island pretty frequently, so there does not seem to be much of a security concern there.

Nor should conservation and the right to return be mutually exclusive. I imagine that people who want to live on remote islands want to live in harmony with nature, ensure that their lifestyles are as sustainable as possible and respect the sustainability of the environment, even if the marine protected area is on questionable legal ground—or in questionable waters.

There are general questions about the sovereignty of the islands. It is not just a question of the right to return. We are in a critical phase, with the roll-over of the 1966 agreement about to take place. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister believes that part 2 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 applies. That Act places treaty ratification into statute and requires parliamentary scrutiny of it. We may be faced with the roll-over of a treaty, but surely the particular circumstances of the 20-year extension mean that it should be subject to the affirmative procedure in Parliament, and surely the Government have nothing to hide or to be concerned about. If the Minister cannot answer that question today, I hope he will do so in the not-too-distant future. In any event, not only Parliament but the Government of Mauritius must be included in any future dialogue.

Finally, there are issues relating to the use of the naval base, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun alluded to. It is important that we get assurances that the British Indian Ocean Territory has not been used for the illegal rendition or torture of detainees during the so-called war on terror. If it has, people should be brought to justice. We call on the Government to recognise that Diego Garcia is part of the internationally recognised African nuclear weapon-free zone and to give assurances that no nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction have ever been placed there. They must also give assurances that military installations on Diego Garcia have not been used to store cluster bombs, in violation of their treaty obligations under the convention on cluster munitions.

The SNP stands fully behind the right of the Chagos islanders to return home. As recently as 16 September, we heard that the Government want to keep the matter under review, but we need an answer at long last. As several hon. Members have noted, it is not clear what makes the Chagos situation so unique. Why are the Government so insistent on standing in the way of the right of return? Is it cost, is it security, or do they simply not want to admit that successive Governments have got it wrong? Britannia has not ruled the waves for some considerable time; the sooner the UK Government realise that, the better.