Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

I agree 100% and could not have put it better myself. I hope that the Minister will address the points raised by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith.

As raised by a number of Oxford academics, there is also the additional, profound danger of deep-sea drilling once the very issues that my noble friend raised become a reality. Once effective control is surrendered and protections are weak or unenforceable, industrial pressure follows. Deep-sea drilling is the archetype of a low-probability, high-impact risk that will destroy and decimate this precious area.

Even routine drilling brings chronic pollution, noise and disturbance incompatible with meaningful protection. If the UK Government insist on proceeding without these amendments, or protections of equivalent force, the UK’s claim to climate and environmental leadership will collapse. We will be that country that lectures the world about marine protection, biodiversity and climate responsibility while quietly signing away one of the most important marine sanctuaries on earth.

Treaties are not acts of faith or promises; they are instruments of law. They need to include all the terms and consequences for their breaches. If environmental protections matter, as Ministers say they do—and we support that statement—it must not be possible to be ratify this treaty without these amendments or protections of equal strength.

Unusually, I will give my last words—noble Lords will not hear me say this often—to the Secretary of State for Energy, Ed Miliband, who stated last July:

“We know that climate change and nature loss are fundamentally linked … but we in this country have helped make a difference”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/7/25; cols. 29-30.]


That is very true regarding this marine protected area, and we do not want the future difference that we make to be a destructive one. I urge the Government to accept these amendments or similar protections.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as a trustee of the Blue Marine Foundation for many years and having been part of the negotiations with the British Government to produce the most exciting and real effect on marine protection that anyone has done. It is a great thing for us to have done. No other nation has done it, and it means that we have been able to bring out of the end of empire something that is really worth while for the future.

This is the crucial place, and the protection of the seas is crucial to the future of humanity. We are not talking about some vague, odd or additional bit; we are talking about a central issue. I cannot understand this Government. I wanted to be helpful to them, but I have to say to the Minister that this is not an acceptable position. We cannot give this up to a state which is unable to do what it—in all validity, I am sure—says it wishes to do. It cannot do it. It has neither the resources to do it nor the history of being able to do it.

My noble friend made the important point about the position and present situation of the state to which we are handing this responsibility. It has a terrible reputation. It has failed even with the seas close to its own homeland. We are handing over to it the safety of a place that is 1,000 miles from the area it does not protect now. How can we possibly agree to this? It is wholly contrary to all that Britain has fought for—the example we have given.

The Minister knows that I am not entirely in favour of some of the changes that my party seems to think would be helpful to the fight against climate change, so she cannot accuse me of being in any way party political on this. This is an unacceptable situation, and she will have to say to this House either that she accepts these amendments or that she will come back with changes at Third Reading which will mean that this, our particular contribution to the world, will be protected. If she does not do that, this will be a major betrayal of what Britain has done—of all political parties right across the board—for the past 25 years. It is a great achievement. We cannot throw it away, and this House should not allow us to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

I had sat down, but I am perfectly happy to say that the UK Government take their responsibilities incredibly seriously. As I mentioned, the OTs contain 92% of our biodiversity. I cannot think of one example where the UK Government have not stepped up to honour their responsibilities and put in place every form of protection.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I remind my noble friend that not only the British Government but voluntary organisations have been doing this, and it is because of the backing of the British Government that they are carrying this through. Whatever the noble Lord’s views on this issue, he must accept that at the moment this is a very highly protected area, and we are offering it to someone who does not protect anyone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 3, 31A, 42 and 43 from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, all relate to the marine protected area and the Mauritian intent to establish its own marine protected area. It will be for Mauritius to implement this MPA. However, we welcome the announcement on 3 November by the Mauritian Government of the establishment of the Chagos Archipelago marine protected area, to be known as CAMPA, and particularly their commitment that no commercial fishing will be allowed in any part of the area.

Amendment 31 from the noble Lords, Lord Faulks and Lord Godson, follows a similar vein, seeking to oblige the UK Government to report on the Mauritian MPA. But we have been clear that CAMPA will be for the Mauritian Government to enforce and fund, and the UK will not be providing direct funding to Mauritius to maintain or set up this MPA. Renegotiation of the treaty at this stage is not a practical proposition, as Mauritius has already made this public commitment to the MPA, which covers the protections requested in the noble Lords amendments. We therefore do not think they are necessary. Likewise—

[Lord Deben (Con)]

What the Minister repeats is what the Mauritian Government have promised. I do not in any way attack what they have promised, but they cannot do it. They have not done it anywhere else, so why are we not insisting that we provide the resources for them to do it?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I will come on to that. It is a perfectly legitimate question, although I would urge people not to speak about the Mauritian Government, who have said everything we would all want them to say on these matters. We work with them in a positive light, and we want to work in partnership with them to make sure that the commitments they have made are followed through. The right way for us to do that is in a more positive way. I was about to come on to the question the noble Lord put, but I will gladly give way to the noble Baroness.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, apart from thanking the Minister and her noble colleague for the courteous way in which they have responded the points I made—which she found exuberant and my noble colleague found forensic—I can limit my remarks to four sentences, two of which are questions.

First, the Government have acknowledged that neither the International Court of Justice nor the tribunal of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea could produce a ruling that was binding on us as to the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. The Government none the less assert that other countries might respond, even to rulings which were non-binding on us, by withholding goods, services or facilities which could render the base inoperable.

My two questions are: what goods and what services, and supplied by which countries? Secondly, if the base could be rendered inoperable by foreign states withholding goods and services, is it not vulnerable to such action even in the absence of legal rulings and even if we surrender sovereignty if other countries object to our possession or use of the base? Why have the Government not replied to these questions?

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I will just come back to the issue of the environment, which is crucial here. I have a direct question to the Minister, whom I particularly respect in this area. Why on earth was there not a clear connection between our payments and the upkeep of this, the most important marine environment area in the world? We have a very proud record on this, yet we are now giving this into the hands of a country which, however good its words, has one of the worst records on marine protection in the entire world. We are giving it power over the most important marine protection area in the entire world, and we have not connected the money we are paying with its ability to pay for the protection of this area. My question to the Minister is very simple: why not? Why on earth have we not done that?

I do not like this agreement at all; I am opposed to it for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has so rightly put forward. But at the heart of my concern is that we are letting down the whole of the international community by giving out something which we have protected and which has set the example for marine preservation throughout the world. Without the Chagos agreement, we would never have had all the others which have followed, and which have been crucial to the environmental health of this planet. I ask the Minister again: can she explain how this arrangement has been made when there is no connection between what we pay and what we expect in terms of protection?

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I have one final question to the Minister, while confessing, quite frankly, that I have taken zero part in the earlier Committee stage—but Third Reading, contrary to what was suggested earlier, is an opportunity to look at the overall aim and underlying strategy of a measure. Some earlier remarks, which were fascinating, about the financial side should have been ones we were allowed to hear a bit more of.

My question is quite simple. Why does the Minister think that, in looking at this issue, we have not heard a single mention of the Commonwealth system, the largest—although not very centralised—organisation in the world? Why does there appear to have been no discussion between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—its relevant office—and the new and very lively Commonwealth Secretary-General? Why does she think we have not seen any understanding that the Commonwealth, although it has been described as “friends with a purpose”, is of course deeply concerned with the rights of islanders, and the rights of countries as to their status—whether they should be protected and be free and open members of the Commonwealth or associated with the Commonwealth? Such engagement would be in the knowledge that we have many friends and that they could discuss matters with Mauritius, and indeed with India, as well as their own status in an age of delegated and digitalised activity in which very small countries can assume a very important role, as no doubt the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia will be doing for some years. Given that new and changing pattern of organisations as a new world emerges, as everyone admits, and that entire makeover and difference in our international relations for years ahead, why does she think we have not applied the sensible duty that we should have applied as an active member—not a hub—of the Commonwealth network and left the decisions that we are now being asked to make for much further discussion in a changing world?