Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 82, which is consequential upon Amendment 80. As the Minister referred to before, Amendment 80 had attracted some flattering imitation yesterday, but nevertheless I hope that we might be able to see progress on what I would consider to be a serious proposal to address some of the concerns that have been raised very sincerely. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said earlier, we have a lot of history to make good, and I agree.

This has been an unusual Committee stage of a Bill in many respects. Perhaps it is because this legislation and the treaty that it is connected to will have, unlike some other legislation that we often might consider to be indirect, a direct impact on people’s lives. They are a defined but diverse group of individuals who have been in touch with many noble Lords. Therefore, I believe that we have an obligation to treat this seriously. In Committee, there have been many passionate, but also proper and probing, questions on how the terms of the treaty will operate and how UK interests will also continue to be represented. We have just heard that from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and we heard it earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad.

Amendment 80 in my name is a proposition for an ongoing inter-parliamentary committee for the duration of the treaty. The Minister mentioned before that she felt it was perhaps a novel response. It is not entirely novel; there are precedents which I have based this on. There have been quite frequently free trade agreements that had parliamentary committees associated with them. There is the EFTA agreement, which the UK had been part of. There was the AWEPA for our African partners in parliaments, which we had been part of. There is doubt from many about how critical parts of the treaty negotiated by this Government will be handled, both by the UK and the Mauritian Governments, and operate through the commission.

We have heard many references today to the deeply flawed Constitutional Reform and Governance Act. It was fascinating for me to listen to this debate, because this House in 2021 passed a Motion—it happened to be in my name—about the ability for Parliament to have a straight up-and-down vote on treaties. The House passed an amendment to the then Trade Bill which stated that negotiating objectives or before-treaty negotiations would have to be presented to both Houses, and the House of Commons would have an opportunity to vote on those. I believe that those aspects would have been beneficial for this treaty. I think the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, forgot that he voted against that, so I am happy to remind him, just for the record, that on the latter part—on the first part, he was not in the House—in one of his very first votes in this House, he was against what he has been arguing so passionately for today.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My point is that there has not been a vote in the other place, so the only proper chance is here.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

No, the case that the noble Lord was making passionately was about the faults in the CRaG process, and I agree with him about that. It is just that if he had not had his view, with his noble friends, in 2021, we would have had the enhanced processes for treaty scrutiny.

However, we are we are because the current Government were supportive of changing the CRaG process for up-down votes on treaties, and now they are against. The Opposition, who had been against then, are now in favour of it. It probably has to do with whoever is sitting on the government side of the House, rather than the opposition side, but we are where we are now. The issue is how we go forward, to some extent. That is not denying that there is still Report stage, and there will still be divisions potentially, but I wanted to flag at this stage, in Committee, the proposal to try to address some of the major concerns.

Before briefly addressing that specific part of the amendment, I want to put something on record, as there have been quite a few allusions today to the notion that the negotiations on this treaty were halted by the previous Administration. In a letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, on 5 April 2024—just seven weeks before the Dissolution of Parliament—he reaffirmed that negotiations were ongoing and that questions on the future administration of the islands were subject to the ongoing bilateral negotiations between the UK and Mauritius. He also said in the letter:

“We will continue to update Chagossians as negotiations progress”.


The negotiations were ongoing at the time of the election. It is worth stating that on the record, because there has been quite a bit of misleading information today. It is interesting that the Foreign Affairs Committee had been making the case since 2008 for a strong moral case for resettlement. That was denied again in the letter from the Foreign Secretary in April 2024.

We have a moral duty to try to ensure that, whatever circumstances arise from the parliamentary proceedings, we have a mechanism by which we allow the Chagossian community to be represented. Through Amendment 80, my proposal is for an inter-parliamentary committee, with MPs from the Republic of Mauritius and MPs from the UK forming a committee for the duration of the treaty. We know, and I agree with much of what has been said today, that trust is low to non-existent among many in the Chagossian community and suspicion is very high. I acknowledge all of that. A means by which that can perhaps be addressed as the treaty is implemented, if it is brought into force, is one where UK and Mauritian parliamentarians, through dialogue, debate and mutual understanding, can observe and scrutinise their respective Executives. Back in their Parliaments, they can scrutinise how the treaty is operating, the implementation of the treaty, whether rights of return are being implemented, the right to self-determination as understood in customary international law, and access to compensation, resettlement and other forms of support.

The commission in the treaty is executive but this would add a parliamentary oversight function, which I believe would be of value. I hope that the amendment will receive cross-party support. I am open to discussing its particular wording, but I hope that the principle will receive support. We owe a moral duty to that community for ongoing representations to address their concerns and suspicions. I therefore beg to move Amendment 80.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I will start with the amendment from my noble friend Lord Callanan and the objection to it from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, which was that this wasincompatible with the decision taken by Parliament. I will just quote—because I think it is helpful—Article 18 of the treaty. It states:

“This Agreement shall enter into force on the first day of the first month following the date of receipt of the later note by which the Parties notify each other that they have completed their respective internal requirements and procedures necessary for the entry into force of this Agreement”.


In other words, it cannot enter into force until both Chambers of this Parliament have given their assent.

We have not made any bones about the fact that we do not like the treaty at all. I think it is a bit much to complain about my noble friend making this point in principle.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

The noble Lord will recall that I had said that it is not in force. I said Parliament had ratified it. I am not sure whether the noble Lord can intervene on an intervention, but I am sure he can intervene on his noble friend in just a moment as a proxy to intervene on me. Parliament has ratified the treaty. The treaty is not in force, but treaty-making is a prerogative power, not a parliamentary power. I am sure the noble Lord will agree with that.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

I will, of course, invite an intervention. I do not know what the rules are on intervening on an intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

To clarify: it is the position of the Opposition that the referendum would also be for there to able to be inhabitants on the military base?

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, if I may intervene—

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am intervening on the noble Baroness. It is her speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. She speaks with great sincerity and consistency in making her arguments, and I share many of her thoughts. I said on the earlier group that I am also awaiting the conclusions of the work of the International Relations and Defence Committee. I hope that it will be able to guide us with some of our thinking on this on Report, after its consultations with the community.

Reference has been made to my honourable friends in the House of Commons, who have also for many years been consistent that we should not repeat the history of making decisions on behalf of the community without involving them. It is our long-held view that that is the basis on which we should go forward.

One of the reasons why I intervened on the noble Baroness, and had the interaction with her noble friend, was that there have been some parts of the debate, especially in the House of Commons, where seeking consideration of the right to self-determination has perhaps been used as a bit of a proxy for other considerations, to try either to prevent a treaty or to prevent the restoration of rights. As the noble Lord said on behalf of his noble friend, we seem to be talking about some form of limited sovereignty, some form of limited and partial right to self-determination.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

The proposal has come from the Chagossian population. That is what we mean by self-determination. It is not for us to lay down whether they should have full sovereignty or partial sovereignty; it is for us to listen to what they want.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I agree with that. It is a clearer proposition than we have heard—a better proposition, in my view. Actually, “better” is the wrong word; it is a more convincing proposition because of its origination. The reality of how we define self-determination and the rights of the community—and where I think the debate has bled into previously—is that it has been used without that clarification, as a different political impetus with regard to the overall desirability or otherwise of having a treaty with Mauritius.

That is where I come to it. The most vociferous of speeches that we have heard deny the reality of what happened just last year. We can talk about the denial of rights. If we are talking about referendum statistics, I agree with about 90% of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, said about rights in her speech. But we do not have to go back to the 1960s to look at the denial of rights. It was in January 2024 that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, as Foreign Secretary, restated government policy that there would be no right of resettlement, and that was while negotiations on the basis of a treaty were carrying on. If it is an argument to suggest that we wish to restore rights of resettlement and rights to self-determination, I accede to that argument. I think it should be in the acknowledgement that the previous Government and this Government refused to do so in the absence of a treaty with Mauritius.

The context that we are in now is that the first opportunity that we may have for limited right of resettlement and acknowledgement of some form of self-determination is by virtue of a treaty. The Minister knows that these Benches do not consider them to go far enough, and we want to use these stages to see how we can go further. But it is worth recognising that the only opportunity that we have for some form of resettlement is by virtue of there being a treaty.