Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I genuinely thank the Minister for his statement, for advance sight of it, and for his long engagement with me on these issues.

The process for negotiating this treaty has been, I am sorry to say, utterly shambolic, from its beginning under the previous Government to its demise under this one. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, an hon. and gallant Gentleman says, “Why did we finish it?” I am sorry to tell him that they did not. There is no evidence at all that this statement was finished by the previous Government.

As this Government shelve the legislation, they must now reckon with the litany of failures that have plagued the process, specifically their inability to secure fundamental legal guarantees from the US through the necessary exchange of letters; their reluctance to adopt measures that would enable genuine parliamentary scrutiny over the planned vast sums of money that would be sent to the Government of Mauritius; and their wilful reluctance to work with or to secure the rights of Chagossians, including but not limited to the right of return to the Chagos islands.

Aside from the Government’s apparent ignorance of the legal prerequisites for the passage of the treaty, the most objectionable aspect of the process has been the woeful engagement with the Chagossian community. The British state has long denied Chagossians a meaningful say in their own future. The provisions of this treaty, shamefully, failed again to affirm those rights, so if the treaty ever does return to this House, the Government would do well to observe and understand the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats in the other place to secure genuine rights for Chagossians and help to buck the historical trend of that community being left out of decisions about its own future.

I have one very simple question for the Minister. Given that the Government have now abandoned their proposed deal with Mauritius over the Chagos islands, can the Foreign Secretary set out what this means in practice for the long-promised right of return for Chagossians? Will the Government now commit to supporting resettlement under continued UK sovereignty? If so, how does the Minister assess the implications of that return for the evidential and legal basis underpinning the 2019 International Court of Justice advisory opinion?

In conclusion, British citizens physically located on the islands would constitute a resident population who would be—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I call the Minister.