Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Katie Lam]

The question that we are voting on today is the deal that the Government have agreed to. It is an appalling deal, and it should be opposed.

The Government’s arguments for putting the deal forward become even thinner when we look at the amendments and how the Government have responded to them both here and in the other place. If, as the Government claim, the deal will make us safer, why not support Lords amendment 1, which would ensure that payments are made to the Mauritian Government only if our armed forces retain access to the Diego Garcia base? We have already heard that the Government will not support Lords amendments 2 and 3, but if, as the Government claim, the costs of the deal are proportionate, why not support Lords amendments 5 and 6, which would provide much-needed transparency about why taxpayers are being asked to stump up so much for the privilege of handing away territory? We hear no such support for those amendments, so the Chagos handover cannot really be about our security, the Chagossians or self-determination.

So what is it about? The truth is that this so-called deal is motivated entirely by ideology. We have heard from the Government’s Attorney General that “almost every aspect” of the British empire was “deeply racist”, echoing the language used by the Mauritians at the International Court of Justice. Of course, when Britain has done something seriously wrong, we should be honest about that, but in the case of the Chagos islands, there was no original British sin. Mauritius never had sovereignty over the Chagos islands, and practically no Mauritians have ever lived there. The islands have been under British sovereignty since 1814, before which they were occupied by the French. Before that, they were uninhabited. This is no decolonisation; it is a surrender.

Our history is complex. It contains cruelties, yes, but also enormous contributions to human health, wealth and flourishing around the world. The darkest moments in our history were hardly unique, yet many of the most virtuous moments in that history were truly exceptional. I believe that we should be proud of the contributions that our country has made to the world. However, the Government’s position on the amendments lays bare the truth: they simply do not agree. Instead, they believe that it is their responsibility to go around the world flagellating themselves and righting imagined wrongs on behalf of and at the expense of the British taxpayer. To their minds, this country is indelibly stained by the actions of those who came before us. The Chagos surrender is one such example, but it is not the only one, and I fear it will not be the last. To attempt to right the wrongs, real or imagined, of the distant past by squeezing the taxpayers of today is divisive madness.

If the Government ever want the British people to believe that they are motivated by anything other than deep shame about our history, they would do well to accept the amendments before us today or—far better—to scrap this deal entirely. The British people are owed a Government who stand up for their interests today, not punish them for the imagined sins of our ancestors.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

This is a sad day for the United Kingdom. The Government have not been prepared to stand up for the interests of the United Kingdom. Indeed, they seem to be willing to surrender when any challenge is made to its interests.

Let us look at some of the arguments that the Minister has made against the amendments. First, the Minister said that nothing has changed since the Bill was originally brought to the House, but of course we have seen that the American attitude has changed. The United Nations says that we are not giving the protections to the people we should be giving them to—in fact, we are more interested in the rights of the Danes who live in Greenland than the Chagossian population. The UN has actually said that we should stay this. So there have been changes, and the changes have been substantial.

The second argument we heard is that the base was under threat and we therefore had to make changes. I noticed what the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) said about the marine protected area and the environmental requirements on the Mauritian Government, but there is no legal requirement in this treaty for the Mauritian Government to protect the marine protected area. Indeed, they have made it quite clear that fishing will be allowed in the marine protected area. What is the danger there? It is of course that Chinese ships can come into the area, and we know that in the South China sea, the Chinese have used commercial ships as their eyes and ears, so the base is under threat as a result of this change.

[Alex Ballinger]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise the 24-nautical mile exclusion zone that the Government negotiated in the treaty? It will prevent many of the things that he referred to.

[Sammy Wilson]

It is not just a question of ensuring that the 24-nautical-mile exclusion zone prevents spying and everything else; the area would still be left environmentally damaged, and there would still be a threat to the military base.

Thirdly, the Government have refused even to consider the Lords amendment about cost. At a time when we are looking for every penny, so that we can supply the citizens of this country with the services that they require, the Government are turning their nose up at an amendment that would ensure that if the base cannot be used, we will no longer pay for it. The Minister has talked about the cost. He has told us all the mechanisms by which the cost has been calculated, but he has not actually told us what the cost is. Is it £3 billion? Is it £10 billion? Is it £37 billion? The difference between those figures is significant to our constituents.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The £35 billion figure has been cited the most today. This is taxpayers’ money that should be funding schools, hospitals and other much-needed infrastructure. The deal is not only a shameful surrender of national sovereignty but a waste of taxpayers’ money.

[Sammy Wilson]

Most people listening to this debate, even if they do not know a great deal about the Chagos islands and the base, will understand that we have handed over the islands when there was no necessity to do so, only to use taxpayers’ money to lease them back. That is one of the scandals of the treaty.

The Minister talked about building a relationship of trust with the Chagos islanders. What way is this to build trust? The Government have refused to give them a say on whether this treaty reflects their interests and deals with their concerns and the despicable way in which they have been treated in the past. The cost is wrong. The way in which we are treating the people who are affected by the treaty is wrong. The Government’s position on the long-term security of the base is wrong. This is a bad deal for the United Kingdom, and we should be ashamed that the Government’s majority is being used to push the deal through when it is so clear that it is full of flaws and problems for our future.

[Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)]

The Bill goes to the very heart of our national security, the safety of the British people, our global reach and our operational effectiveness in two of the most volatile and unpredictable regions of the world: the Indo-Pacific and the middle east. It also raises serious questions about the cost of this deal to the British taxpayer, which amounts to £34.7 billion.

Even in the short time since the Bill was first brought to the House, the world has become even more unstable, yet the Government remain content to press ahead with the Bill. I struggle to see how it makes us safer, considering the requirement “to expeditiously inform” Mauritius of operational activity, and considering that Mauritius is a signatory to the Pelindaba treaty. The implications of the Bill for the basing of nuclear weapons, which are vital to our security and to our deterrence, and which have been deployed to Diego Garcia in the past, should concern every Member of the House. We need further clarity and assurance from the Government on that point.

That brings me to the £28 billion shortfall in the defence budget that the Chief of the Defence Staff recently presented to the Prime Minister. It does not take a mathematician to see the point that I am making; indeed, the maths is so basic that I suggest that even the Chancellor could work it out.