Diego Garcia: Comments by the President of the United States

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Any country could help withhold any service relating to the operability of the base at any time because the legal jeopardy in which it stood was sustained, and it would be their right to do that. The reason we are trying to get the base on to a more secure legal footing is to avoid that proposition. We are talking to the US about this, and it is one of the reasons that it was supportive of the deal that we have done. Those conversations continue. I can only assume that this is the same legal jeopardy that confronted the previous Government and led them into multiple rounds of negotiation on the same issue.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I worked out that this Minister and other Ministers have told Parliament on over 50 occasions that the treaty can go ahead only with American support. It is not just the President of the United States who condemned the deal: Marco Rubio did the same, as did Scott Bessent, who said that, if the deal goes ahead, our FTA could be put at risk, thus jeopardising thousands of jobs in this country. Surely, the Minister should be statesmanlike and now insist that we put everything on hold pending grown-up talks with the American Administration.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I do not know what I have done that is not statesmanlike, but our intention is to have those conversations with the United States and come to an agreed position, and that has consistently been our view. I encourage the noble Lord to consider the words of the Prime Minister yesterday, when he made our position clear, in talking about Greenland, that the reason why President Trump made his comments about Diego Garcia was to try to leverage them to encourage us to take a different position on Greenland. That has not worked, and our position is consistent.