Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Richard Tice and Luke Pollard

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will make some progress, but I will take Members’ interventions in just a wee moment. [Interruption.] The shadow Foreign Secretary will get a go in a moment, but if she wants to continue shouting at me, she is more than welcome to do so; I will make some progress in the meantime. I hope she understands that this debate is best approached in a good-natured way, and I am certain that she will be doing so, with less shouting.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Luke Pollard]

As I just mentioned—the hon. Gentleman might have missed it—I will give way in a moment, but I will now make some progress.

Courts and international bodies were already making decisions that undermined our position. Others would have followed suit, taking us down a path towards making the base inoperable. This Government will not allow that to happen. There has been a wealth of misinformation on these legal points, and those who have suggested that the UK should simply ignore international law fail to recognise the true impacts of these cascading adverse rulings, which would have not only impeded our ability to control and operate the base, but would have swiftly undermined our ability to control the waters, the air and the electromagnetic spectrum on which the base relies. Such rulings would have fundamentally undermined the very capabilities that make the base so uniquely valuable to the UK and the US, our allies.

This treaty eliminates that legal threat. Under the treaty, the UK will retain all the rights and authorities necessary for full operational control of Diego Garcia. It provides for unrestricted use of the base.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

It is good that the hon. Member has read the detail of the treaty. As he will know that, at the end of the initial 99-year lease, a first refusal will be offered to the United Kingdom. That is the right place to be, and that offer will mean—as he describes it, in four generations’ time—there is a decision for this House to take about what it wants to do based on the circumstances at the time. This gives us first refusal, so we can conceivably see that full control of the UK-US base on Diego Garcia could extend well beyond the 99 years I have mentioned.

[Richard Tice]

Does the Minister accept that we owned the freehold of the Chagos islands, and does he agree with me that in the mid-1960s we paid Mauritius £3 million in old money—some 80 million quid in today’s money—to cede all future claims over sovereignty?

[Luke Pollard]

The legal analysis that this Government have received, and indeed that the last Government received, showed that the position of UK sovereignty over the Diego Garcia military base was putting the base’s operation at risk. The reason why the last Government began the negotiations was to secure the continuing operation of the base, and it is the reason why we are doing so. Securing the future operation of that base is the primary concern of this Government. Indeed, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey), it was the primary concern of the last Government as well. That is what this deal secures, and it is really important that that is understood clearly: the base is what matters in relation to its continuing operation, and that is what this deal secures.