Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sugg on 18 November (HL10143), whether they accept the description used by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 25 February 2019 Legal Consequences of the separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 that Chagossians were "forcibly removed" by the UK between 1967 and 1973.

The UK Government has expressed sincere regret about the manner in which Chagossians were removed from BIOT in the 1960s and 1970s. In its Written Statement to the ICJ, the UK accepted that the way that Chagossians were treated was wrong and that there was a callous disregard for their interests. However, the UK did not characterise their treatment in the same terms as those used in the Advisory Opinion.