Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 12 September 2016 to Question 44262 on Diego Garcia, since what date the existing procedures referred to have been in place.

The US presence on the island of Diego Garcia is governed by a series of agreements, called Exchanges of Notes, of which the overarching agreement sets out the whole Territory should be made available for UK and US defence purposes for an initial 50 year period of 1966 to 2016. If neither side object during a two year window of December 2014 to December 2016, the agreement will continue as it stands until the end of December 2036.