Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord opposite for the opportunity to ask questions on this Statement. It is indeed a shame that nobody from the Foreign Office was available to turn up and accept responsibility for the utter shambles of the policy that it has created. This latest U-turn has been a long time coming, and for those of us who have fought the Government’s appalling Chagos surrender every step of the way, it is, of course, very welcome. The Chagos treaty has been wrong from the start, and it is a relief to see the Bill finally scrapped. It is obvious—it seems to everyone except the FCDO—that this Chagos deal is dead and that Ministers urgently need a plan B. Will the Government look again at the plans considered by a number of previous Governments on the viability and cost of resettlement of the Chagossians on the outer islands? That would be considerably cheaper than the current deal and, thanks to the excellent work by this House’s International Relations Committee, we now know that the vast majority of those Chagossians want to remain British and want nothing to do with Mauritius.

Although Ministers seem to have not yet finally accepted that the treaty with Mauritius is dead, we on this side are unanimous. The Chagos deal cannot now proceed and it is destined to be carefully locked away in a dusty FCDO filing cabinet marked “No further action”. That is as it should be.

As I said, I welcome the news that the Government will not seek to take the Bill any further in this Session or seek to carry it over into the new one. The Times reported last week that the Chagos deal was dead, and that it had been briefed that no Bill relating to the Chagos treaty would be in the King’s Speech. That is welcome, but can the Minister confirm whether that briefing is accurate? Parliament has not yet been told. Can he also confirm that the Government will not introduce any Bill in respect of the British Indian Ocean Territory without first securing American agreement to changes to the 1966 treaty?

Taxpayers will, of course, be delighted that the £35 billion that would have been paid to Mauritius is now available to be spent on our own national interests. It should now be allocated to boosting our national security in an increasingly unstable world. Can the Minister confirm that not a penny will be paid to Mauritius now that this deal is dead? His colleague, Minister Doughty, was a little evasive on this point in the Commons yesterday, so can the Minister put an end today to any rumours about possible compensation or other payments to Mauritius, and put it on the record in Parliament now that Mauritius has no legitimate claim on taxpayers’ money without this treaty?

In the other place, my right honourable friend Priti Patel asked Ministers about the purpose of the upcoming UK delegation to Mauritius, but the Minister there failed to answer. Can the noble Lord please tell the House what the purpose of that delegation is? Who is going on that delegation to Mauritius and what, in fact, will they be negotiating?

We know that the Chagos surrender deal is vehemently opposed by political decision-makers in the United States, and it is Opposition Members in this House who brought the importance of the 1966 UK-US treaty to the fore late last year. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will devote no more precious time and resources to this deal now that we know that the US is formally opposed to it?

I turn to the Chagossians themselves, who for too long and too often have been mistreated and ignored throughout this process. Can the Minister give the House an update on the status of those Chagossians who have returned to their homeland on Peros Banhos? What is the UK Government’s view of their status in the light of the ruling of the British Indian Ocean Territory Supreme Court that the Chagossians have a lawful right of abode? Why are the Government refusing to allow them mosquito nets, bed linen and water purifiers? Their resupply vessel is the only small boat that the Government seem to be interested in stopping in any way whatever.

The Chagossians have been ignored for far too long. The Government’s decision not to proceed with this treaty gives Ministers an opportunity to finally do the right thing by the Chagossian people. I thank noble Lords on all sides of the House who have stood up for the Chagossians, for the British taxpayer and for our national interest in opposing this awful treaty. I cannot thank them all by name at this stage but they know who they are. I am proud to have worked with them, and pleased that the Government have finally listened to the arguments that we were making all along.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, this has turned into a very sorry affair. I continue to be sorry for the Chagossian community, which sees that the political turmoil and injustice that it has endured over many years has the potential to continue, because the same international legal position remains, not only in relation to the status of the archipelago but with regard to the rights of the Chagossian community that have been denied by subsequent Governments since their shameful expulsion in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

There has been poor handling from the outset, and the Minister has heard me say so on a number of occasions. I say “the outset” because, in the Statement in November 2022 by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly saying that negotiations would commence on ceding sovereignty, he said they would cover the international legal elements, but in the process of negotiation that then took place the Chagossian community was disregarded far too casually. Indeed, in March 2024, just before the Dissolution of Parliament for the general election, the then Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, confirmed to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that negotiations were ongoing but he also restated the Conservative Government’s strong opposition to any right of return, settlement, visits or working on Diego Garcia.

With regard to the UK-US security relationship, which has been the trigger now for the Government’s action of pausing the legislation, the previous Government also failed to take up the extension of the UK-US treaty that was allowed for in that treaty, so we are operating under a rollover element of that treaty. It has not been renewed or updated in a substantive form. Is it the Government’s intent that that process will carry on? We have seen the statements from the State Department that were then contradicted by President Trump, but what is the status of the understanding with regard to the treaty? It has been amended on a number of occasions since it was signed but has not been fundamentally reviewed. That was a choice by the previous Government.

Fundamentally, there has been a continual denial of the right of return, and the Labour Government did not properly consult the community, which would be directly affected. Can the Minister clarify whether the Government are content with the text of the treaty itself—separate from the fact that it cannot be brought into force because the legislation has now been withdrawn in this Session—or will they take the opportunity to look at the treaty again? It is important to be clear on that point but it was not clear in the House of Commons yesterday.

There are opportunities to look at the treaty elements to firm up those areas so that they are not simply permissive with regard to Chagossian rights but will enshrine them. The same goes for the test for value for money, scrutiny and accountability. The Minister knows that those are issues that these Benches have focused on relentlessly. Indeed, our amendments to that effect passed this House with cross-party support.

If there is a long delay then the Chagossians’ rights will be continuously denied. There is an opportunity to operationalise those rights and for the Government to right the wrongs of many of their predecessors by bringing into force the mechanisms to do so under our domestic legislation. That would overturn the statement of the former Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, but while we wait for clarity from the United States Administration, which none of us can guarantee, these Benches would support legislation to ensure that Chagossian rights are not put in limbo. They have been denied those rights, but that can be addressed now.

We can also operationalise the funding elements, with regard not to Mauritius but to the Chagossian community itself. There seems to be a commitment by the Government to support a trust fund for the rights of the Chagossians, and it seems an injustice that that should be paused as a result of President Trump. The Chagossian community should be able to benefit from that level of support. We simply cannot trust the Trump Administration, notwithstanding the previous statements by US State Department officials.

Can the Minister state what US processes we will trust? I have a degree of sympathy for the Government; within the space of two days there was a statement from the State Department of the United States saying that it was supportive of this measure, followed by a White House Truth Social posting by the President. What is the mechanism in America that we will now trust?

Lastly, this is a technical point that was raised by my honourable friend Richard Foord yesterday in the House of Commons about the military relationship with the US. There seems to be a degree of uncertainty as to whether the United States has access to the deep-water port at Diego Garcia, which could potentially be a staging post of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Can the Minister be clear about our understanding of what the US is currently using and can use, and what the UK will allow to be used, when it comes to both the port and the military base at Diego Garcia?

I hope the Minister can take up an offer for there to be—at least at this stage, even though it might be difficult—a degree of cross-party consensus that the Chagossian community’s rights that have been denied for so long should not be put on ice. While we await clarity from the State Department of the United States, we should be operationalising those rights now.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

I thank everyone for their warm welcome and for the opportunity to respond to those questions. It is an important debate. I say to the noble Lords, Lord Callanan and Lord Purvis, and to everybody contributing—many Members on both sides of the House—that it is an important issue.

Let me say straight away, just to set some context, that the difference between us is not about ensuring that we have a strategic base, which is of crucial importance to the United Kingdom and to our allies, and about doing our best for the Chagossian people. There is a difference of view about how that can be achieved. Clearly, as the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has outlined in his remarks and the various speeches he has made from the Dispatch Box over the last few months, supported by many of his colleagues, he has a different view from the Government as to how that can be achieved. He has argued for that.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and others have argued for a sort of middle ground but have also raised the issue, as many Members have done, of the rights of the Chagossians themselves. None of us in the House believes that the way the Chagossians were originally treated was something of which any of us can be proud, but any Government have to deal with the situation that they are confronted with and we are dealing with the situation now.

Let me try to answer directly some of the points that have been made. The noble Lord will know that the Bill will not pass in this particular parliamentary Session. As for the King’s Speech, let us see what is in that, but the Government will continue the discussions on how to take this forward. We will continue discussions with the Americans. We have said all along that it cannot proceed without the support of the Americans. The exchange of notes from 1966, although slightly amended, underpins the treaty, so of course we need US support for that. Although originally given, that support is not forthcoming from the President at the current time. I hope that directly answers him: of course we need US agreement with respect to this, were we to take it forward.

On the issue of the money, there will be no treaty payments at all to Mauritius.