Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Graham Stuart

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

[Graham Stuart]

It might be a joint base technically, but what is it in reality? I would love an intervention from the Defence Minister; he could tell us. How much do we use it operationally, because there are thousands of Americans there and, as I understand it—unless he corrects me—at most dozens of Brits. In other words, it is a United States base on sovereign UK territory that we will pay tens of billions of pounds for over the next 100 years to provide it to the Americans for free. It makes no sense, and I do not see why we have had no answer from Ministers as to why that is a sensible use of public money.

[Stephen Doughty]

rose—

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

I will give way to the Minister and then to my right hon. Friend.

[Stephen Doughty]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his generous comments. He and I have always had robust but friendly discussions on many issues. However, I do have to correct him on this point. The US pays for the operations, and the value to the British taxpayer, the US taxpayer and, indeed, all our allies is priceless in that it protects the people of this country from multiple threats, so what he says simply does not make sense.

[Graham Stuart]

The United States plays a critical role as a member of NATO and as a key ally—if not the key ally—of ours, but despite the priceless nature of the service it provides, we do not typically pay for it. We do not normally pay for its bases; we pay for our own.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Member knows that we regret what happened historically in relation to the Chagos Islands. He will also know that the islands are not permanently inhabited. That was necessarily a negotiation between the United Kingdom and Mauritius.

Let me respond to the many points about the environment, on which many amendments were tabled. We are absolutely clear that the United Kingdom and Mauritius are committed to protecting one of the world’s most important marine environments. Indeed, the Mauritian Prime Minister met the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), in the margins of the third United Nations ocean conference in Nice on 9 June, where he reaffirmed his commitment to the creation of that marine protected area around the Chagos archipelago. That will be supported by an enhanced partnership with us. The treaty has been welcomed by leading conservation NGOs, including the Zoological Society of London. We continue to work with Mauritius on the implementation of that measure. We are considering seriously the many genuine concerns that right hon. and hon. Members, including the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and members of the Environmental Audit Committee, have raised. They are serious and important questions, and I assure the Committee that we are taking them seriously, and I will try to update the House on them in due course.

[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way—he is being very generous. In 2017, the clear position was that the International Court of Justice was not in a position to adjudicate on the relationship between us and a member of the Commonwealth. Has that changed, and, if so, when?

[Stephen Doughty]

We have been very clear about the legal position and the legal risk. The right hon. Gentleman’s Government knew this; it is why they started the process. I do not want to detain the Committee by going through all the arguments that I made on Second Reading—[Interruption.] But he knows that we faced the comprehensive rejection of our arguments at the ICJ in 2019, we lost votes at the UN General Assembly, we had the maritime delineation judgment binding on Mauritius and the Maldives—[Interruption.]

British Indian Ocean Territory

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Graham Stuart

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend asks a very important question. As I have set out, there will be multiple opportunities for this House and the other place to consider this matter, not only through the normal Constitutional Reform and Governance Act process, but through the Bill that will be brought forward to make the necessary provisions under the treaty, which will go through the normal process. Full scrutiny will be afforded to Members of this House.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The President and Vice-President of the United States have made clear their detestation of countries freeloading on defence and security matters. We are not asking for the detail, we are not even asking for the quantum, but we do deserve to know in this House today whether the Government have asked the US to contribute to the base on Diego Garcia that is so vital to it—yes or no?

[Stephen Doughty]

As I have said on a number of occasions, we welcome the US endorsement of the deal and of its strength, and we are grateful for the close co-operation between the United Kingdom and the United States. The full details will be provided when the treaty is presented to the House.

Energy Bills: Self-disconnection

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Graham Stuart

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. If she will follow that up with some details, I will happily write to her and come back on the specific points she has raised.

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

I genuinely appreciated the Minister coming to meet us yesterday to discuss these issues, but he will have seen the shock and disbelief in the room when he made his announcement, not least as he wrote to me just last week to say that the scheme would open in January, and I have been asking him about this since October on behalf of constituents in Sully who are affected. Nearly 1 million people across the country have had no form of support, in lots of different types of building, as he well knows. Can he be absolutely clear: when that portal opens on 27 February, how long will it take for those people to get the payment? Are we talking about a month, two months, or will they have to wait until the summer? What advice can he give them in the interim? Should they allow debt to build up? Should they turn off their heating? What should they actually do, and what should the management companies do, particularly in communal buildings, which potentially owe significant amounts, with residents having not paid their Bills? What is his advice to them?

[Graham Stuart]

The decision was made yesterday and I was able to brief colleagues, including the hon. Gentleman—I thank him for attending the meeting—yesterday afternoon, so I have tried to move as quickly as possible. Of course, until a decision is made, Government policy stays as it is until it is changed, and that explains the letter. I certainly hope that the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) would accept that I was not being disingenuous. We moved to communicate as quickly as possible once the decision had been made.

The payment will go through local authorities. Much as I would love to give a define date, it depends when people apply. We will be encouraging people to apply from 27 February—if that is when the scheme launches—and then local authorities will be carrying out their verification. We will triage that first, to minimise the imposition on local authorities, but they will have to go through a process to get the payment out. That means I cannot give a definitive date, much as I would like to, and much as the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) is right to suggest that it would benefit people to know when they will get the support to which they are entitled. I hope he understands that, administratively, if I gave a date there would be a risk that I would be back before the House again to explain why, in some cases, it was not delivered. We will do it as quickly as we can but, having talked to the pilot local authorities, they feel that we are taking the most robust approach with the best chance of getting the payment out as quickly as possible.