Baroness Chapman of Darlington
Main Page: Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Labour - Life peer)British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty
Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, watching this UQ in the other place yesterday was a slightly surreal experience. The Lib Dem spokesman said it was a shambolic process—he was obviously correct, although he clearly had not consulted his colleagues in this Chamber, who had voted for it 24 hours earlier. Government is about choices, particularly when there are limited resources, although it seems that Labour Back-Benchers have not realised this yet. The Government must allocate those limited resources to their most pressing priorities. We know that this £30 billion Chagos giveaway is being partly funded from the noble Baroness’s overseas development budget, although she has so far refused on a number of occasions to tell us exactly how much of it. How did she come to the view that funding tax cuts for Mauritians was a greater priority than funding other ODA programmes which provide, for example, life-saving vaccinations to children?
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
I see that we are back to the charming noble Lord, Lord Callanan, whom we used to know and love. The cost of this will be around £100 million a year. That is about the cost of running the NHS for five hours or the Queen Elizabeth vessel—I hesitate to say which type, so I will not try. This is excellent value. It secures our ability to share this base with the United States and it is fundamental to our security in this country. It enables us to fight terrorism and keep ourselves safe. This is nothing to do with the ODA budget, as the noble Lord well knows. I will leave the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats to deal with whatever feud they have going on about process.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I have in my hand a BBC News report of Jeremy Corbyn welcoming the Government’s decision on the exercise of sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. It reports that he was “very pleased” that the UK Government had backed down and said that the Foreign Secretary’s announcement was a “good step forward”. That report was from 3 November 2022. Jeremy Corbyn was welcoming the Liz Truss Government’s announcement in Parliament that negotiations would open on the ceding of sovereignty. What has happened since then—one would think that any agreement between Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Truss is not one that we would follow—was a shambolic process in which the Chagossian community was denied its rights under the Conservative Government and not consulted sufficiently by the Labour Government. There has been insufficient information about the trust fund; the money was not going to be provided by the previous Government and there is a lack of detail from this Government.
There is no feud between me and my Commons colleagues, because the position is perfectly apparent. When this House had an opportunity to secure a concession from the Government to have more information about the funding and to include the Chagossian community in a much better way, because it had been let down by the previous Government and this Government, we took the opportunity to try to end the shambles. When will we see the Statement that the Minister promised me on Monday?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The Statement will be provided in due course. You will not find anybody in this House who gives less regard to what Jeremy Corbyn thinks than I do, although there is clearly some stiff competition.
The trust fund is important, because it is right that there is some acknowledgement and a fund to support Chagossians. I believe it will be held by the Mauritians. It is important to understand that there is a range of views about this within the Chagossian communities. There is not one voice; Chagossians living in different parts of the world—in the UK, Mauritius and the Seychelles—do not all agree on this. I have a great deal of sympathy with what the noble Lord says about the Chagossian communities having been badly treated over many decades. That is undoubtedly true, but it is not right to suggest to them that there is a way for them to resettle Diego Garcia or a straightforward way of holding some sort of process, when this treaty has been forged between the two sovereign Governments of Mauritius and the UK. This is a unique situation. We have prioritised our national security in this process. You can have only one priority, and that is our national security. That is right, but it does not mean that we cannot acknowledge and regret some of the issues that the noble Lord brings to our attention.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, in the debate on Monday I had the chance to namecheck the Chagos all-party parliamentary group, which I think was founded in 2008. I have been involved in it for a lot of that time. I think it would recognise that this treaty is the first time the Chagossians have secured the right to visit and the possibility of resettlement in Chagos, which the all-party group has long campaigned for. I do not often agree with the right honourable Member for Islington North, whom I stood against in 1992, but he is president of our all-party group and I have to pay tribute to him; he has long worked to champion the Chagossians when successive Governments have ignored them.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
What is useful in the noble Baroness’s contribution is that she draws attention to the fact that, under this treaty, Chagossians will be able to visit the outer islands and resettle, should that be feasible, with co-operation from the Government of Mauritius. That is by no means a straightforward undertaking when there is a complete lack of services. We should not talk about it lightly. There will also be the ability to visit Diego Garcia. These visits stopped some years ago, so their recommencement will be a welcome development.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
My Lords, is it not the case that the right to visit is in the hands of the Mauritian Government, as is the trust fund that has been set up, which is capitalised by the United Kingdom Government? Therefore, Chagossians living in the United Kingdom, who have been denied their rights for so long, as we hear from all sides of the House, will be denied access to this trust fund.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
We had to make a choice here. We could have prioritised the rights of the Chagossian community and enabled them to have the right to return and settle on Diego Garcia. That would have undermined the security and viability of the UK-US base, so we thought that was the wrong path to take. We have prioritised national security. The noble Baroness can disagree with that choice. She may suggest that she would have prioritised the Chagossians’ right to return. That is a pretty interesting position for any credible, responsible Government of the United Kingdom to adopt, and it is not one that we have chosen.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, my memory is not as good as it used to be, so can the Minister help me? How long ago were the Chagossians removed from their homeland? How many discussions and debates did the previous Government have on this matter, and has she heard any more hypocrisy from the Opposition Front Bench than we have heard today?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I mean, there is plenty. They were removed more than 50 years ago, and we can discuss the wrong of that. It was done, as Members will no doubt observe, under a Labour Government. That is all true. That does not change where we are today. Under successive Governments, including Conservative-led ones, it was recognised that negotiations were necessary to secure the legal footing of the base. I know that the ruling was advisory, but it was soon to be followed by a binding ruling. We could choose to disregard that binding ruling. Other nations would be unlikely to choose to disregard it.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I just said that there is no binding ruling but we anticipate that there would be one, which is presumably why the previous Government were negotiating. The decision we have taken secures the base. It gives a sound legal footing. It means that our allies and friends, whom we rely on to make that base work and supply it with all the things necessary to run it well, can now proceed on a secure legal footing. It has been welcomed by our allies across the world, including the United States.