Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Richard Foord
Main Page: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)Department Debates - View all Richard Foord's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill
Richard Foord Excerpts(1 day, 18 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Doughty
I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman on that matter, but what I am absolutely clear about is that it was his Government who started the process of negotiations, under the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), who conceded the principle of sovereignty and conceded a financial element, and did not put in place some of the key security provisions that we were able to secure in the negotiations. I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
The US navy began a blockade of Iran at 2 pm this afternoon. Has the US been granted permission by the British Government for the use of the deepwater port at Diego Garcia as a staging post for the imposition of that blockade?
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Gentleman will understand that I am not going to comment on operational details from the Dispatch Box, but the Prime Minister has been absolutely clear about which requests from the United States have been acceded to and which ones have not. He answered an extensive statement on that this afternoon, and I hope that that suffices.