UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Leader of the House

UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago

Lord Blencathra Excerpts
Monday 30th June 2025

(2 days, 11 hours ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Blencathra Portrait Lord Blencathra (Con)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

My Lords, I was sorry to hear the valedictory speech of my noble friend the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, magnificent though it was. I had the privilege of serving with him in the Commons for all his 23 years there and as Chief Whip, and he was the careful, thoughtful, intellectual and caring politician then that we have all seen in this House since 2010.

But what a unique day—a valedictory speech from dad but the Boswell lineage continues in this House with a superb maiden speech from one of his daughters, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis of Banbury. I did not know her in the Commons, but I knew of her excellent legal qualifications and her time as Attorney-General, and her fight for our hard-pressed farmers. Also, of incredible importance to me, she had the common sense to oppose HS2, and she and others will be proved right as this shambles continues to stagger out of control. I look forward to hearing more of her contributions in this House.

This is an appalling deal: an agreement that sells out the United Kingdom, the Chagossians and our wonderful marine protected areas, and we are paying a fortune to a country with no legitimate or legal interest in it. The Government say that they had to do a deal with Mauritius, since the UK would soon have been forced to surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, if the International Court of Justice ruled against us in a binding agreement. But that is simply not the case. Mauritius cannot secure a judgment establishing that it is sovereign over the Chagos Islands: the UK is not required to consent to its dispute with Mauritius being adjudicated. The International Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to adjudicate the sovereignty dispute between the UK and Mauritius and its 2019 advisory opinion did not establish that Mauritius was sovereign.

The Government fear that the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea, which has no jurisdiction in questions of sovereignty over territory, will “presuppose” or “assume” that the 2019 advisory opinion has settled that Mauritius is sovereign rather than the UK. It is typical of the FCO to anticipate and plan for failure. The framing of Article 1 is incompatible with the position in UK law, which is that the UK has been sovereign over the Chagos Islands since 1814, including from 1965. Yes, the last Government were negotiating with Mauritius, but we did 11 rounds without agreement, and I am certain that, if we were still in government, we would do another 11 rounds and still not sign off on this appalling deal.

We all know how this comes about with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: it has a long history of selling out our overseas assets. It gave up Aden and South Yemen in 1967, where the Houthis are now in charge. In 1980, the FCO was secretly negotiating to give the Falkland Islands to Argentina, which led directly to the Falklands War. In 2001, the FCO had secret talks with Spain over the sovereignty of Gibraltar, until Gibraltar stopped it with a referendum in 2002 in which 99% of the population voted to remain British.

What will be next? When will we give up Cyprus, like we gave up Malta in 1979? Why did the Foreign Secretary do it? I can hear the Sir Humphrey of the Foreign Office saying, “Foreign Secretary, the last Government were endlessly negotiating, but failed to close a deal. This is a great opportunity for you. The International Court of Justice is bound to demand that we hand them over, so we can avoid being in default by doing a deal now. Of course, we will have to make a small payment in order to keep Diego Garcia. That will be a small price to pay for pulling off a remarkable foreign policy achievement”. I can imagine that being said, and, in 30 years’ time, we will no doubt get the record to prove it. With a brand new Foreign Secretary, it was easy for FCDO officials to con him into selling out the Chagos Islands. I bet they did not explain to him that we have to tell Mauritius at any time that the US wants to undertake a combat mission from Diego Garcia.

Unlike most of my noble friends, I am not worried about the security situation, because the United States will certainly never tell us well in advance if it is going to use Diego Garcia for any foreign operation. It gave us one hour’s warning about bombing Iran because it simply does not trust us, and it will certainly not trust us in any operations from Diego Garcia, because it knows that the islands’ Chinese friends will be told within seconds.

Nor did the Foreign Secretary’s advisers tell him that the Chagos Islands’ marine protected area of 640,000 square kilometres, one of the largest in the world, is rich in vulnerable species, with 66,000 square kilometres of the finest coral reefs in the world. Under British control, there is a complete ban on all fishing, but we know that, as soon as the Chinese fishing fleets get in there, which they will, they will be stripped bare within five to 10 years, because that is what the Chinese do with every fishing ground: they invade and destroy.

In conclusion, we are paying Mauritius billions to jeopardise our security and destroy one of the finest marine protected areas in the world: a brilliant Foreign Office deal, the best sell-out yet.