Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

John Slinger Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Phil Brickell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Holmes]

I will in a second. I just want to emphasise the point so we do not hear it again. There were no negotiations. There was no deal. [Interruption.] The negotiations were stopped. There was no deal on offer, and no money was being offered. I hope that Members will scratch that bit out of their speeches as they go forward.

[John Slinger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), called the Mauritian Prime Minister on 22 February 2024 and reassured him that

“the UK remains committed to a mutually beneficial outcome…and their teams look forward to continuing to work on this.”

Will he comment on that?

[Paul Holmes]

Yes, I absolutely can. I am not a lawyer, but I would say it is crystal clear in the sentence the hon. Gentleman has just read: “mutually beneficial”. What the democratically elected Government of the day decided, through Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, who I said—if the hon. Gentleman was in the debate earlier, he would have heard it—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says he has other things to do, Madam Deputy Speaker. I suggest that if he thinks this is very important, he should have been here for the whole debate and not just intervene on a debate that I think is about national security. I repeat the point to him: the Foreign Secretary at the time ended the negotiations because, as the then Prime Minister said, “mutually beneficial” was deemed not to have been the case.

I want to touch briefly on the arguments put forward by the Government about hiding behind international law. I cannot do it justice like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam, but it is clear that the Government keep hiding behind judgments that they have to follow. I remind the Minister again that it is not a binding judgment. If the Government had chosen to challenge that non-binding judgment, he would have had the support of those of us on the Opposition Benches. The Government decided not to do that and have accepted a non-binding judgment and fast-tracked the capitulation and surrender of a British overseas territory for the first time in a long time. The Minister could have challenged that decision, because it was non-binding. I shall let the record stand with the speech by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam, who went through the numerous international structures that this Government have signed up to and set out how we did not have to follow that.

Lastly, clause 2 is absolutely disastrous. The hon. Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) spoke of the historical context here. I congratulate and commend the hon. Gentleman for his speech; he is an incredibly brave and principled man who stands up for his constituents. Under clause 2, this Government have decided unilaterally to recognise that Mauritius has sovereignty over the Chagos islands. I remind the House and the Government that Mauritius has never in the historical context of the Chagos islands had sovereignty, and that this Government have chosen to give sovereignty over the islands to a country that has never had it.

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[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

There have been some fantastic speeches from Opposition Members standing up for British interests, so I will not go on at length, but I wish to make a few points.

This surrender Bill is madness. The Government have decided, against the security and financial interests of the United Kingdom, to surrender territory to which there was no claim to a country that has no historical or cultural connection to it. They are doing so because, in the words of the Prime Minister,

“If Mauritius takes us to court again, the UK’s long-standing legal view is that we would not have a realistic prospect of success.”

Let us be clear: there is no legal or moral obligation to surrender the Chagos islands to Mauritius.

Labour is the worst negotiator, spending tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to surrender the Chagos islands, bunging billions to its unionised paymasters on day one of forming a Government, and showing a lack of will on tackling welfare dependency. Whatever Labour touches, the costs to the taxpayer go up and the benefits diminish. This spectacularly bad deal will leave Britain less secure while British taxpayers stump up tens of billions of pounds for tax cuts in a foreign country—equivalent to 4% of the Mauritian budget and to £50 million for every constituency represented in this House.

The staggering £35 billion cost is 10 times more than was originally claimed because of the Government’s creative accounting—even the UK Statistics Authority does not endorse the figure. It was arrived at by applying an assumed annual inflation rate of 2.3% over the 99-year lease period, despite inflation running at almost 4%. The total was then lowered again by between 2.5% and 3.5% per year through a Treasury practice called the social time preference rate, which reflects the fact that people value benefits received immediately more highly. It converts future costs and benefits into their present-day value rather than allowing for a more accurate valuation of future costs. The Government are happy to apply that rate in the case of their surrender deal, but will not use the same methodology to cost their affordable homes programme.

What is worse is that the Government have refused to allow Parliament a separate vote on the financial obligations under this terrible deal—they could have done, but chose not to. That £35 billion could have been spent on new hospitals or schools or, in the case of my constituency, on infrastructure to support the thousands of new houses that the Government want to build. It could have been spent on tax cuts to stimulate the economy or even to plug Labour’s own financial black hole. Labour is cutting tax for Mauritians off the back of hard-pressed UK taxpayers.

Then we get to the national security risks. Diego Garcia, located on the Chagos islands, is the UK’s most important military base in the Indian ocean. The geopolitical significance of the base cannot be overstated in a world in which China seeks to undermine us. We know that China thinks in a multigenerational capacity. It is a dictatorship that does not share our values, and this is the blink of an eye in terms of how it plans its future. China has made no secret of its intent to deepen its relationship with Mauritius. It is an increasingly hostile state towards the UK, and it knows too well that Mauritius is key to supporting its long-term strategic goals. Furthermore, Mauritius has signalled that it is working more closely with Russia on research and development, and with Iran on developing closer relations. Mauritius has gone on public record stating that it is grateful to the Chinese for playing a critical role in its pursuit of international recognition of Mauritian sovereignty over these islands.

[John Slinger]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bradley Thomas]

I will not. While the Government and the Prime Minister are trying to paint this as a good deal, they know that Beijing, Moscow and Tehran have watched closely and have all taken note.

Finally, it is not just this country’s taxpayers who recognise that this is a bad deal. Lord West of Spithead, former First Sea Lord, Chief of the Naval Staff, and Labour Security Minister, said that ceding the Chagos islands to Mauritius would be “irresponsible”, risk our strategic interests, and undermine the fundamental principles of international law. Why do the Government prioritise any interests other than Britain’s, and foreign sovereignty over that of the UK? The Bill will leave Britain poorer, weaker and exposed. It is a betrayal not just of UK interests but also of British Chagossians, and it does not deserve a Second Reading.

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[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Today’s Second Reading is not only important, but historically significant—sadly, for all the wrong reasons. We are debating a Bill that will leave Britain less secure, undermine our strategic interests and leave British taxpayers out of pocket. The decision by this Labour Government to surrender sovereignty over the Chagos islands to Mauritius and to pay billions of pounds for the privilege, with no checks or balances, is nothing short of a national humiliation. It is a deal that weakens Britain at home and abroad, and one that the official Opposition will oppose every step of the way.

[John Slinger]

On the point that the right hon. Lady makes about the alleged surrender of sovereignty, which has been made consistently by Conservative Members, does she accept that on 29 April 2024, just weeks before the election, the former Prime Minister—the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), under whom they all stood for election only a year or so ago—and the Mauritian Prime Minister discussed negotiations on the “exercise of sovereignty” and instructed their teams, no less, to “continue to work at pace”?

[Wendy Morton]

I remind the hon. Member of two things. First, talking and signing are two very different things. Secondly, some of us on the Conservative Benches remember that no deal is better than a bad deal.