Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Baroness Meyer and Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

I am coming to a conclusion. I understand what it is like to feel ignored and sidelined; to have someone in Government tell you that your identity is second class; that you cannot really be a full British citizen. I know what it is like to have fought for your rights to represent your people when a foreign state wades in against you. I understand the struggle to be heard more than most. Parliament therefore has a responsibility to correct that course. These amendments do not ask for much.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendments 14 and 25. This treaty and the Bill that will enact it is bad for our country, for our security and for British taxpayers. As we have already discussed, it will leave Britain poorer, weaker and strategically exposed.

This treaty is also bad for the Chagossian people. Half a century ago, they suffered the terrible injustice of forced removal. This treaty compounds that injustice by offering no guaranteed right of return, no legally binding resettlement plan and no meaningful protection of their rights. This is truly shameful. For a Government who claim to uphold human rights, it is an extraordinary moral failure.

Dr Al Pinkerton, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, said at Third Reading in the House of Commons that

“we cannot allow the Bill to pass without ensuring that Chagossians themselves are sovereign over their citizenship, the governance of their islands and the prospect of return”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/25; col. 756.]

He is right, and I am surprised that no Liberal Democrat in this House has put down any amendment in support of a referendum. To deny the Chagossians their right of self-determination and to shape the future of their homeland is unworthy of a country that champions justice, fairness and democracy. This amendment would give them a chance, but it would also give us, a nation that prides itself on a centuries-old democratic—