Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Caroline Nokes

Committee of the whole House
Monday 20th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), who has spoken with great authority about the military threat. I also commend the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton). I agree with everything he said; he spoke with great good sense and moderation.

I wish to speak to my new clause 14—I am grateful to my friends who have signed it—which states:

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, lay before both Houses of Parliament proposals for an advisory referendum of Chagossians residing in the UK, seeking their opinions on the Treaty signed with the Government of Mauritius and the provisions of this Act.

(2) Within a month of publishing the proposals specified in subsection (1), the Secretary of State must make time available in both Houses of Parliament for a debate on a substantive motion relating to the proposals.”

An advisory referendum would be a moderate and sensible proposal, and I am not sure why anybody would disagree with it. Surely we in this House have a moral duty to the Chagossian people, not to bureaucratic convenience or diplomatic horse trading. My new clause simply calls for the Chagossians to be consulted on their own future. That is not unreasonable. It is a modest and entirely proper request. After decades of exile and neglect, it is indefensible to negotiate their homeland’s fate without even asking them. Have we ever handed over a people to a foreign power without even consulting them?

Proponents of paying Mauritius to take the island cite international law, but the entire point of decolonisation was to assert the self-determination of peoples. The United Nations was founded upon the principle that nations and peoples should be free to determine their own destiny in a peaceful way. Chagossians, as we now all agree, were wronged by both the British and the Mauritian authorities. By the way, I am probably the only person sitting in this Chamber who has actually been to the islands—[Interruption.] I am sorry; I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell). I went there with the Defence Committee 40 years ago.

We kicked those people out of their homes, albeit for perfectly the legitimate reason of promoting the stability and security of the free world, and Mauritius accepted money to help look after displaced Chagossians. No one can dispute the fact that Chagossians are treated as having second-class status in Mauritius. Chagossians who have been living there are fleeing in increasing numbers to the United Kingdom. Many of them happily assert that they want the sovereignty of the United Kingdom to continue over the British Indian Ocean Territory, but they also want a right to return.

Righting the wrongs we have committed means listening to the Chagossians directly, and that is all I am asking for. The amendment would give Parliament the chance to ensure that justice is finally done for those who suffered most. Britain should not repeat the sin of dispossession under the guise of decolonisation. I repeat, Britain should not repeat the sin of dispossession under the guise of decolonisation. To hand the territory to Mauritius would not “end empire”, but merely pass the islands from one remote capital to another; from one imperial power to another. The United Kingdom must not compound historic injustice by ignoring the only people with a legitimate moral claim to these islands.

The Chagos islands are of course a linchpin of regional security for Britain, the United States and our allies in an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific. Undermining that strategic position would embolden hostile powers and weaken our ability to uphold freedom of navigation. Those who call this a colonial relic misunderstand it. It is a forward defence post, not a backward-looking possession. As has been said time and again, the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion carries no legal binding force and should not dictate British policy. Allowing unelected judges in The Hague to override Parliament’s responsibilities is an abdication of national sovereignty. The Government should resist any creeping judicial globalism that seeks to erode British self-government under the cloak of “international law.”

I will end on this point, and I believe it is a very powerful point: consultation with the Chagossians through a UK referendum is an act of basic democratic respect, not a legal technicality. My new clause would strengthen rather than weaken Britain’s moral standing by showing that we act with fairness and consent. We should not wash our hands of responsibility for British subjects in favour of imagined diplomatic convenience. The right course is to combine justice for the Chagossians with the preservation of Britain’s strategic obligations, not to sacrifice one for the other. Parliament should back these new clauses and amendments as an affirmation that Britain remains a nation that keeps faith with its peoples and its allies alike.

Middle East

Debate between Edward Leigh and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Beneath all the peace rhetoric, the brutal Hamas regime were openly executing people yesterday, and refused to give up their weapons. Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that he is going to remove them by force if necessary, and he refuses to accept a state in the west bank. It may be naive, but cannot both sides of the House unite in saying that we are absolutely, completely committed to creating a Palestinian state in the west bank? That is their God-given right and it is the only way we are going to end the cycle of despair and violence.

Spending Review: Health and Social Care

Debate between Edward Leigh and Caroline Nokes

Thursday 12th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Our spending on the NHS is now as much as the entire GDP of Portugal. We used to be a country with an NHS attached to it, but we are almost becoming an NHS with a country attached to it. Of course we would welcome this spending if we got the same outcomes that people get in civilised countries, like the Netherlands or Australia, but every time I mention fundamental reform, I am dismissed as wanting to bring in privatisation, so it is hardly worth raising that issue. Australia has an extremely successful pharmaceutical benefits scheme; I know that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care went out there, and I have talked to Australian doctors about it. Will the Minister at least look at the successful outcomes, including some of the highest life expectancies in the world, that are being delivered in countries like Australia and the Netherlands, to see how we can deliver better outcomes? There is no point spending more money if people’s only right is to join the back of a queue.

Ukraine Update

Debate between Edward Leigh and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

What worries me is that President Putin has said he will not accept NATO troops on the ground. In the absence of NATO troops on the ground, could we not be back to a 1939 Sudetenland situation where the aggressor takes a slug of territory and then moves in several months later? Will the Secretary of State confirm that he is absolutely convinced—perhaps he can also convince President Trump—that in the absence of NATO troops on the ground, this is a worthless peace?

School Accountability and Intervention

Debate between Edward Leigh and Caroline Nokes

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

In my experience, parents have a pretty good instinct for what is a good school, and the great generator of progress has been the academy programme, with headteachers responding to what parents want. We should be giving them more freedom, not less. Is there not a danger that if we create highly complex Ofsted reports with league tables across 40 different areas, we will replace headteachers concentrating on what parents want with a tick-box culture focused on appeasing the man in Whitehall? The solution is not endless auditing but delivering what parents want.

Middle East

Debate between Edward Leigh and Caroline Nokes

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I think the Foreign Secretary has spoken for the whole House today with his tone. I am sure he would agree that it is possible to be four-square behind the Israeli Government in their right to defend themselves and defeat Hamas and at the same time to care about the suffering of the Palestinian people. Will the Foreign Secretary use his charm or whatever influence he has on the incoming Trump Administration to persuade them to use their power to convince the Israeli Government that these illegal new settlements in the west bank must stop, and the pressure on the Palestinian people in the west bank must stop, because it is fuelling a sense of despair and future extremism?