Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether the US-UK agreement on the leasing of the Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands in the British Indian Ocean Territories includes permission for the US to (a) build and (b) operate the Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance system as part of outer space communications.

There is no lease with respect to Diego Garcia. US presence and operations in the British Indian Ocean Territory are governed by a series of international agreements, beginning with a 1966 Exchange of Notes between the US and UK, which set out that the whole Territory should be made available for UK and US defence purposes.