UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Howell of Guildford
Main Page: Lord Howell of Guildford (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Howell of Guildford's debates with the Leader of the House
(3 days, 4 hours ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I join with others in the very best wishes to what might be called the Boswell team. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, has shown by her speech that she has a thoroughly professional mind and training, which will bring great value to our counsels, and we are very lucky to have her here. I have known the noble Lord, Lord Boswell—I call him Tim Boswell—for years in and out of government. I always found that he was a rock of common sense, particularly in the Brexit quagmire, where a great deal of nonsense is talked. I shall be sad that he is going. All I say to him is that I hope he enjoys retirement and does not spend time trying—dare I say it—to write a Life of Samuel Johnson.
I am glad that some noble Lords got the joke.
I will use my four and a half minutes to discuss the security aspects of the whole project, which are by far the most important in the present state of the world. The position of the Chagos Islanders has been strongly debated and is covered in our very thorough International Agreements Committee report, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, so excellently chaired and introduced today. I had the honour of being on that committee, like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I am sorry that, for legal reasons that I do not fully understand, the Chagossians have had—once again—virtually no say in their future. I understand that the last place into which many of them want to be subsumed is Mauritius, which is 2,200 kilometres away. An association or tie-up with Australia was much preferred by some, but it is too late for a more imaginative solution; that was not put on the table at all.
On security, in this very dangerous time the issue comes down, in hard terms, to leasehold or freehold. Are we safer hanging on to the freehold, which will be constantly challenged by various courts of various qualities around the world, with the prospect of continuous rulings against us? Or are we better off with a long lease, which in theory should be safe but can of course be abrogated or have new conditions applied or other changes made to it? Look at what happened in the case of Hong Kong—we should never forget that.
That does not even put the whole question in balance, because with the lease option comes the most enormous bill. I would like the Minister to explain just what that bill is. The Explanatory Memorandum talks about £3.5 billion in today’s money through the so-called Green Book methodology. When my noble friend Lord Callanan rightly and robustly questioned these issues, he mentioned £30 billion—so one side is almost 10 times the size of the other.
I have never known a debate like this before; I have been in these two Houses for 59 years, and I have never heard such a cavalier approach by a Government to cost. It is essential that, if they are to ask for approval of any kind from this House or any other body, Ministers make clear just what the monetary implications are. The sums are vast—think what we could do with them here at home. No doubt, Mauritius will make good use of these colossal sums of money; perhaps it might even lend us some back, as we need it. This certainly needs clarifying; we cannot stand in the complicated situation into which we have now been put.
The immediate security considerations are much clearer and more pressing. The immediate area we are discussing is either side of the 52nd meridian line, which roughly bisects the Indian Ocean and is teeming with activity by hostile powers—the so-called counteraligned nations, notably China. Most of our sea-borne trade, and 80% of all world sea-borne trade, has to cross that meridian line. The Chagos Archipelago is just about plumb in the middle of it. China is building ports all around, such as currently in Kenya. Chinese closeness to Mauritius is a fact, not an exaggeration, as one witness to our committee implied.
Disruption of sea trade would be devastating for all of Europe but especially for us; it has been christened as Europe’s nightmare. Remember that the Red Sea and its mouth at Bab el-Mandeb are virtually closed already, and shutting the mouth of the Persian Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz is also on the table. Benjamin Disraeli and other great statesmen of the past must be turning in their graves. This is all the more urgent when land routes are blocked and overflight western air routes to Asia are already shut off. Yet Asia is where all the growth comes from and where we must be.
The Government seem set on this change of status at what has become the cross-routes of the world. Let us pray and hope that it proves worth it and makes us stronger, not weaker, in the storms ahead.