UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been here quite a long time, but it is a first for me to find myself following both a maiden speech and a valedictory speech by father and daughter. If I were to do justice to the two speeches, I would use up most of the time allocated for me to talk about the Chagos Islands. It is very easy to say that the contribution from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, was easy on the ear—which is not always the case with lawyers. It was fluent and persuasive. It is easy to say to her, as I do, that we look forward to further contributions from her.

As far as the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, is concerned, again, it is very easy to pay tribute to his long career here. We have overlapped from time to time. In both Houses and on both sides of both Houses, he has been highly respected: he is modest, understated, thorough and fluent. He has a political career of which he can be proud, and while we will miss him not being there, my word, he has earned his retirement.

Now, to the Chagos Islands. The central proposition in today’s debate—namely, that sovereignty of the Chagos Islands should be transferred from the UK to Mauritius—is one that I strongly support. It should have been done years ago, back in the 1960s, when no fewer than 11 countries in Africa achieved their independence. It is strange that the remarks by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, sounded as though we were doing people a favour by giving them their independence, as though we were still good old Britain ruling the waves. Each year of delay in the transfer of sovereignty has made the problem of the Chagos Islands and the base ever more complex and I congratulate the Government on finally dealing with the challenge.

I particularly welcome the fact that the treaty in its preamble acknowledges the importance of

“Recognising the wrongs of the past”.


It goes on to say that we should be

“Conscious that past treatment of Chagossians has left a deeply regrettable legacy”.


In these few words there is contained a lot of human misery and, frankly, a shameful episode in British colonial history. I therefore make no apology for spending some moments reminding the House of the extent of the injustice that was perpetrated on the Chagossians and which is now acknowledged in the treaty.

The context, as ever, is important. The 1960s were a period when the dangers of the Cold War were probably at their most acute—it was, after all, the decade of the Cuban missile crisis. So it is perhaps not surprising that, in 1966, the UK and the US signed an agreement to develop a base on the strategically valuable island of Diego Garcia. What happened next is barely believable. In short, the native Chagossians were expelled from their own country, never to return. The cruelty—there is no other word for it—began in 1967, when a number of Chagossians, who had left their island temporarily for holidays or medical treatment, were simply barred from returning home. By 1973, all 1,700 of them had been expelled and relocated. This was a profound injustice perpetrated by a British Government, not on some date back in the mists of time but in the lifetime of many of us here today. Although I am happy with what is in the treaty, I am sorry that it does not do more to right the wrongs of the past.

The failure to do this is laid out clearly in Article 6, which says:

“In the exercise of its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, Mauritius is free to implement a programme of resettlement on the islands … other than Diego Garcia”.


The message of Article 6 to the ousted people and their descendants who lived on Diego Garcia is this: you can go back to any of the islands but you cannot go back for a 100 years at least to the island from which you were so brutally expelled.

While we all understand the importance of the base to our military and defence, can the Minister say if there is really no way at all for, say, a number of Chagossians who might wish to be employed on Diego Garcia to be allowed back to live there? I know it is not a perfect solution, but at least it would be a step in the right direction. It is a question I asked the Minister, my honourable friend Stephen Doughty, during the committee meeting two weeks ago. He said in reply:

“It is a question I have often been asked, but it is impossible for that to take place on Diego Garcia operationally. It is not suitable or appropriate”.


To say that a course of action is “not suitable or appropriate” is pretty thin gruel by way of answer to a question.

I know, of course, that there are many good reasons for Ministers to be circumspect when it comes to matters of national security, but when my noble friend on the Front Bench replies, can he provide more information about why the base is not suitable or appropriate? Is it really not possible to provide some accommodation on part of Diego Garcia to enable those Chagossians—probably a small number—who wish to return home, perhaps to access civilian employment on the base, to do so? If we are told that it is not suitable for security reasons for civilians to live close to a sensitive military installation, the answer is surely that it happens in Britain and in many parts of the world—all over the world, in fact—that civilians and the military live in close proximity, to their mutual advantage and with no problems whatever.

I welcome that the issue of sovereignty is at last being addressed, but it is surely possible for more to be done to go some way towards compensating for the injustices of the past in the way that I have suggested, much of which is contained in a long letter to the Foreign Secretary from the International Relations and Defence Committee. At the very least, given that we will be involved with these islands for at least 99 more years, I hope that a continuous dialogue can take place with the Chagossians, for their benefit and for ours.