Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

To return to the issue of Chagossians, on which I am trying to make progress, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth and FCDO officials have met with the Chagossian communities. Under the treaty, Mauritius will now be free to carry out a programme of resettlement of the outer islands, and we have agreed a new trust fund for Mauritius to use in support of Chagossians and the resumption of visits to the Chagos archipelago. Over the coming months and years, we will increase the UK Government’s support to and engagement with UK Chagossians, including through UK-funded projects designed through a new contact group, informed by the Chagossians’ own wishes, which met for the very first time last week and was attended by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware that the payment from the 1960s, referred to by the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), was also supposed to be spent on Chagossian welfare, but many Chagossian groups have raised the fact that that money did not go on Chagossian welfare. It went on many other things for the Mauritian Government, but not on Chagossians. What confidence does he have that this agreement is any more valid than the last one?

[Luke Pollard]

That is precisely why my FCDO colleagues are working very closely with Mauritius to ensure that the money that is included in the treaty, and the obligations that both the UK and Mauritius sign up to in the treaty, are fully delivered so that the Chagossians receive what this treaty says they should receive. That is a really important part of the treaty.

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[Tom Tugendhat]

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend can help me in giving a prediction. Two families have swapped leadership of Mauritius over the last 60 years. Does he see any reason to doubt that the same two families will swap leadership over the next 60?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

That is exactly the point. There are serious concerns about the uncertainties surrounding future growth and societal wellbeing. If there are such concerns when it comes to UK predictions about the UK, imagine how difficult it is to predict what will happen in Mauritius, so this should be dismissed.

It is interesting that after not answering the question for so long, suddenly the Government have popped up with a new device. They say that if we do not accept the figures, we are completely dismissing the Green Book, but the overall cost is not a Green Book issue, because this is about paying somebody money outside the UK, not about controlling cost. That is why the Green Book has never been used for this purpose before, and never will. I simply say to the Government that the money side of this has fallen apart again.

I come to the third element. As I said earlier, we have had no real vote or debate on the treaty, as opposed to the Bill. The old CRaG system has been rushed through, without a vote. I have to tell the Minister, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, that that is simply appalling, given that we are dealing with something as strategically important as this treaty.

Clause 5 of the Bill, which is a very flimsy document, is entitled “Further provision: Orders in Council”. Anybody who reads that will have a sudden intake of breath. The whole point of this Bill is negated by clause 5. What is the point of debating the rest of the Bill, given that clause 5 says that at any stage, and under any circumstances, the Government can change it all by Orders in Council? Absolutely everything can be changed by Orders in Council, with no vote and no dispute. If the Government decide to go in a different direction, they do not have to consult Parliament any more.

The sweeping powers in the Bill are ridiculous. When the Minister was in opposition, he used to spend his whole time moaning—quite rightly—about Governments who give themselves such powers. Even by the standards of previous Governments, this Bill is pretty astonishing. It is a massive sweep. This is not really democracy any more; it is monocracy. In other words, we have given up debate and dispute, and we have handed things over to one person—the Prime Minister. I say to the Government that the Bill is appalling, and they really need to rethink it. We simply cannot go through with something as appalling as this. I can remember the Maastricht debates, and various others in which we spent a long time debating clauses on the Floor of the House. That was the right thing to do, because such issues are important. International treaties are vital to our wellbeing, and the Bill simply does not work.

The last thing I want to say is on China. I would say this, because I am sanctioned by China, as are some of my hon. Friends. I suspect that others will be sanctioned as well in due course. If they carry on working with me in the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, they are bound to be sanctioned, and I look forward to their joining us at that table. There is no way on earth that China does not benefit from this Bill. China has its eyes on the very important flow of commercial traffic that runs just below the Chagos islands, which it has always wanted to be able to block, control or interfere with.

The Chinese already have a naval base in Sri Lanka, which they got by default on the back of the belt and road initiative, due to non-payment. For a long time, they have been looking at how, under their arrangements with Mauritius, they will eventually be able to intervene. They are two or three steps further forward as a result of this Bill. It does not secure us against that absolutely, because we gave up absolute security and control when we decided to hand over sovereignty to Mauritius.

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[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

So many Labour Members seem to have forgotten that the reshuffle was a couple of days ago. They will have to wait another few months, possibly years, for their obsequiousness to be rewarded.

May I suggest that we are in a somewhat through-the-looking-glass world? Over the last few hours, we have heard very clear questions from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), who is no longer in his place. He explained that we are hearing a circular argument about legal intervention to which there is absolutely no response. All we hear from Government Members is ChatGPT-generated press releases—“I rise to speak”, “I rise to speak”, “I rise to speak”. ChatGPT knows you are there. That is an Americanism that we do not use. Still, they should keep using it, because it makes it clear that this place has become absurd.

This building and this Chamber are a complete waste of time when our electors and fellow citizens hear that we have listened to the arguments of Mauritius, China, India and the United States, but are not willing to listen to the arguments of Britain. We are not willing to stand up for the interests of the British people, or to look at the strategic interests of UK defence. Instead, all we hear consistently is that the Americans are for the deal. Of course they are for it; this is a territorial deal, and they have no interest in the territory. All they are interested in is the lease of the base. They are leasing the base off us at the moment, and they will be leasing the base off Mauritius via us into the future, so there is no change for them.

Of course, India is in favour of the deal. By the way, I respect the position of the Indian Government greatly, but do you know what? I am not an Indian MP. I have a different perspective, because my job—and, I thought, the job of Labour Members, but clearly I was wrong—is to stand up for the British people. Instead, all I hear is that Labour Members are standing up for the interests of different foreign powers. That is absolutely fine. They worship international treaties and stand up for so-called international law, but they conveniently forget—[Interruption.] Members should hear the end of the sentence. They forget that international law is conflictual, challenged and regularly, if not almost always, in direct confrontation with itself, because it highlights different interests. At different points, Governments champion different aspects of international law in order to seek different outcomes. That is how it has grown up. It is the job of sovereign Governments to stand up for our interests. I thought that was the job of our Government, but it clearly is not the job of this Government. Instead, this Government do something quite different; the moment that they are challenged, they run away. Brave Sir Keir bravely turned his tail and fled.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. This debate has to be fair on both sides. I will not have Members referring to the Prime Minister by name.

[Tom Tugendhat]

It could have been any Sir Keir —there are so many of them. I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

This Government have decided that instead of fighting for Britain’s interests, all they will do is turn around and capitulate.

[Mr Calvin Bailey]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will not. The problem is that this case is not just about these islands, or the issues we are debating today; it is about the way in which Governments approach these debates.

Just in case we are in any doubt about the changed nature of the use of law against us, it is worth looking at the timeline of these events—which is completely coincidental. We know, because colleagues have mentioned it, that in the 1960s a deal was done, a payment was made, Mauritius accepted it and we moved on. Just after the Falklands war, a legal action was begun, using Mauritius and extending a claim. Just after the Falklands war, the KGB started to fund the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. By the way, it is not me saying this—it is in the Mitrokhin archive; it is all public. Just after the Falklands war, when the Soviets realised that they did not have the military power to defeat NATO, they started experimenting with lawfare, and we have seen them do it again and again. If Members would like to read reports on this issue, Policy Exchange very kindly published a report by me in 2013, and another one in 2015—“Fog of Law” and “Clearing the Fog of Law”, for those who have trouble sleeping.

Since then, we have seen lawfare grow. We have seen states using the power of lawyers against the interests of the British people time and again, and the trouble with the capitulation we are seeing today is that it is not just about Diego Garcia, these islands or this interest; it is about the question of whether or not this Government will stand up for the British people, and for our security and our interests. Let me sketch out a hypothetical situation for you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is possible, although I hope it is not necessary, that British troops will be asked to do some peacekeeping in somewhere like Ukraine. It is possible that they will have to leave at a moment’s notice with the equipment they have, without the ability to re-equip—simply to go with the best that they have. It is possible that countries like Russia will object.

We know, because we have seen it happen in the late 1990s and all the way through the 2010s and 2020s, that the Russian Government and others have encouraged legal action against our armed forces. To be honest, Governments have been poor on this issue since 1999—Labour Governments initially, and then Conservative Governments—so it was very welcome that Lord Cameron stopped this, recognising that a different position could be taken. Sadly, this Bill reverses that position. It reverses the presumption that our Government, the British Government, will represent the legal interests of the British people and fight these cases. Instead, they will capitulate. The problem is that capitulation is what got us into this problem in the first place. We can look at the Bici case in Kosovo in the late 1990s, where we settled rather than fought, or at cases in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we settled rather than debated—rather than going to court and seeking a judgment. Those cases created precedents, and I am afraid that this Government are creating another precedent.

I know that the Minister will say that the Governments of the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, and many other places have correctly said that this case has no connection to them. I am delighted that they have said so, and they are right, but they are sadly mistaken in thinking that that means nobody will test that point.

[Jacob Collier]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Tugendhat]

Had the hon. Gentleman been in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate, he would have been welcome to contribute, but given that he has such a passing interest, I am sure he will not mind if I carry on.

The reality is that it is not up to the person who is pursued by law as to whether they will be challenged; it is up to the aggressor, and we know who the aggressor is. We know who has been using lawfare against us. We have seen it time and again, and I am afraid that the effect of this Bill is to concede that point. I am fascinated that so many Government Members feel that they had no choice but to conclude the negotiation. Admittedly it was begun mistakenly by a Conservative Administration and, yes, I did write to the then Prime Ministers—both of them—complaining about it and pointing out the error of their ways. I was a Minister, and I wrote about it and complained about it, as did Lord Murray of Blidworth—I think that is right. I am going to get his name wrong, forgive me—that is one for Hansard. We both wrote, because we both thought it was wrong at the time.

What can I say? We left office. The civil servants re-presented the same offer and sadly, here we go again. The British people feel so disenchanted at the moment because we see changes of Government and no changes of policy. We simply see a continuation and the Whips’ briefings coming out again. We simply see the pointlessness of democracy in this place, because we might as well not bother being here. The Foreign Office stitched this one up. The Minister cannot even change the judgment, and he has sacrificed everything on the whims of an international process with no regard to the interests of the British people.