Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Uma Kumaran and Luke Evans

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

2. Whether his Department has budgeted for future spending on the UK-Mauritius Treaty on the Chagos archipelago.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Uma Kumaran)]

This Government inherited a situation from the previous Conservative Government where UK control over the vital UK-US military base in Diego Garcia was under threat. This is about the long-term safety and national security of the United Kingdom and the British people. Maintaining the long-term operational control and security of the base remains a top priority; that is the entire basis for the UK-Mauritius agreement. A financial element was a crucial part of that deal.

[Dr Evans]

We have heard that line for the last two years. The question that the public want answered, and the one I asked the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis), before the summer, is: where is the case? The former Defence Secretary said that he was looking at the details closely. Six weeks on, can the Minister confirm that the deal is now dead, as it should be?

[Uma Kumaran]

The hon. Gentleman asks about the payments, but he knows that this is about the long-term safety and national security of the United Kingdom and the British people. Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the United Kingdom and the United States that has protected our shared security for nearly 60 years. At the time, the Conservative Government held 11 rounds of negotiations with the Mauritians; at the time, they argued that Britain’s defence was best served by having legal certainty over the Chagos islands. Funding for the treaty will be provided within the existing spending review settlements for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence.