Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will meet commitments made before the 2010 election to arrive at a just and fair settlement of the issue of the exile of the Chagos Islanders in the light of the award of 18 March by the Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in the case of Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration (<i>Mauritius v. United Kingdom</i>), and the conclusion by the KPMG report commissioned by the then Foreign Secretary that return by the islanders is feasible.

I refer the noble Lord to the Written Ministerial Statement I made on 24 March on Progress in reviewing policy on resettlement of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), (HLWS440). In relation to the Arbitral Tribunal, it remains the case that there is no question about the UK’s sovereignty of BIOT and we have always maintained that the Marine Protected Area is not a bar to resettlement.