Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his US counterpart on the extension of the lease for Diego Garcia Airbase.

We welcome the US presence on Diego Garcia, and we have said we want to see it continue. The current agreement does not conclude until December 2016, and we have not yet held substantive discussions with the US about this subject. I expect my officials to begin doing so later this year.