Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Committee (1st Day) (Continued)

Amendment 5

5: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (2) and insert— “(2) Sections 2 and 4 of this Act do not come into force until the duties outlined in sections (Equality Impact Assessment) and (Implications of treaty on United Kingdom defence spending and United States of America) are discharged.”

My Lords, I beg leave to move the amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow.

The financial aspects of this Bill are the easiest for people not involved to understand. It does seem bizarre that at a time when we are borrowing money and scratching around for savings, we are raising taxes here in order to fund tax cuts in Mauritius. I do not want to detain noble Lords, so I will not go over the figures again. We had an expert disquisition from my noble friend Lady Noakes at Second Reading.

Even if we were to accept the Government’s figures, we still face an immense imbalance in where the money is going. I come back to the point that we were making just before dinner, about the wrong that everyone accepts was done to the Chagossians and what restitution would look like. The Minister said they had been very badly treated. Well, badly treated or otherwise, their compensation, if we measure it purely in financial terms, comes to a one-off £40 million settlement for good—whereas, even on the figures offered by the Government, we are paying Mauritius £101 million every year for the next 99 years. Who is the wronged party here? How is it that having done this harm to population A by moving them, we then reward the population that is in fact making permanent their exile and deepening their sense of grievance?

Never mind whether it is £3.1 billion, £35 billion or somewhere in between, at Second Reading my noble friend Lord Altrincham made the point that this is money being sent out of the country. We can argue about whether there is merit in Governments spending cash here to stimulate growth. I personally am of the camp that says it does not work. It is better to leave that money directed by people who are attached to it; they spend it more wisely and the growth impact is much higher. But I will allow that there is some impact in stimulating the domestic economy, even when a Government spend money badly. There is none at all when you just take a sum of money and send it several thousand miles away, which is what is being proposed here.

The noble Lord referred to £40 million. I assume he is referring to the trust fund that is going to be set up.

Yes.

However, as he is fully aware, that is totally in the hands of the Mauritian Government. No Chagossian from here can access that money. Is that not something that should be considered?

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for that important correction. This would not be the first time this has happened. The sums that were disbursed to Mauritius in the 1970s, supposedly to be spent on the welfare of the Îlois exile community, were hung on to. They were disbursed very late, and their value had been significantly eroded by inflation in the meantime. Indeed, given that record, there is little wonder that there should be bad feeling from a lot of Chagossians towards the Mauritian Government.

Unusually in this House, the noble Baroness and I were on the same side in the 2016 referendum, so we are familiar with the argument that here is a little bit of your money back; we are spending it for you, and you should be grateful. It was an unconvincing argument to the British people in 2016, and I think it will be an unconvincing argument to the British people and to the Chagossian portion of the British family in 2025. I beg to move.

My Lords, I will refer to Amendment 24 in my name. I thank the Minister for her gracious remarks earlier in the debate. I can assure the Committee that I will not detain it as long this time. The amendment asks a simple and poignant question. Should the British taxpayer be compelled to fund a treaty that actively undermines our position on the international stage and erodes British sovereignty? I believe the answer is as simple as the question: no.

Article 11 of the treaty places the United Kingdom under financial obligations to Mauritius, including annual payments linked directly to the transfer of sovereignty. We are being asked to underwrite, year after year, a settlement that has not been endorsed by the people most deeply affected. In 2008 the Foreign Affairs Committee noted the “profound poverty” experienced by many Chagossians resettled in Mauritius. The United Kingdom Government have recognised the “hardship and suffering” caused by their displacement in the preceding years.

At a time when families across the United Kingdom are struggling with the cost of living, when public services are stretched and defence spending is under pressure, the Government are willing, and obliged under this treaty, to transfer British funds overseas in exchange for the honour of relinquishing sovereignty over a territory that hosts one of the most strategically important military bases in the world. Why would we pay for an island that we already own?

Without the inclusion of this amendment, we will be in the extraordinary position of financing, on an annual basis, a settlement that ultimately advances arguments that have repeatedly undermined British sovereignty. That is why this amendment is undeniably crucial. It protects not only the taxpayer but the constitutional integrity of this country, as well as relegating the overindulgent aspirations of the Mauritian Government, depriving them of even more British taxpayers’ money.

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, and I want to speak to my Amendment 23. Before I go into that, the noble Lords, Lord Hannan and Lord McCrea, have put very clearly just how ridiculous it is that we have a territory that is ours and now we are paying to give it away. The whole thing is just such nonsense. I understand, as we all do, the security implications of Diego Garcia, but it is just inexplicable how this could not have been handled differently. Some noble Lords listening to the debate might well be feeling that this is definitely going to end in tears.

It is also very disappointing, particularly for the Chagossians who have sat here all evening—while we had a break as well—to see so few people here. There is one Back-Bencher from the Labour side, one Cross-Bencher, no Lib Dems at all now apart from the Front Bench, and a number—there should have been a few more—from the Conservative side. I am disappointed by that, and a lot of people should feel a little ashamed that those Chagossians have sat here all evening, listening to their future being decided with so few people listening.

My amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a report assessing the financial implications of the treaty for the United States of America and the United Kingdom, including the effect on NATO spending and the risk of global instability from uncontrolled leasing of islands. One of the main arguments the Government have advanced for the Bill before us—and for the treaty, which will be ratified if this Bill gets Royal Assent—is that the Americans strongly support the treaty and believe it provides the legal certainty they desire. The purpose of Amendment 23 in my name is to probe the downsides, as well as any potential upsides, to ensure that His Majesty’s Government can fully advise the Trump Administration of both.

There are three critical respects in which I do not believe that the Bill and the treaty are in the interests of the United States. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that they are profoundly contrary to the interests of the United States. It is plain, as we saw from the debate earlier, that the treaty will not be able to provide legal certainty, because it is contrary to international law on self-determination and the Ellice Islands precedent. The legal issue is not going to go away, because we will be signing a treaty if this Bill goes through. However, the points that I want to focus on relate to the costs and international peace and stability.

In entertaining the Mauritius treaty and the Bill before us today, the United States would be acquiescing in an arrangement that means a lot of money going to the Republic of Mauritius that could otherwise have been invested in NATO defence. In some ways more troubling is the fact that the provision of this huge sum for one island creates an incentive for the Republic of Mauritius to seek to lease other islands for similarly large amounts of money. We know that it cannot resettle the islands because it does not have the capacity to go there to set its flag on them, and it has had to ask India to take it there for that purpose. In the context where resettlement may not be a possibility, the transfer of 60 islands of great geo-strategic importance from a nuclear power with a navy to a small country that does not have the capacity even to get there under its own steam creates a power vacuum in a very sensitive spot. Of course, the United Kingdom and the USA will remain on Diego Garcia, but, crucially and unlike at present, without sovereignty over a single island, including Diego Garcia.

Such is the lure of a vacuum in power politics that even when the treaty has not been ratified and may never be ratified, other states have already started circling. On 30 October, www.shippinggazette.com published an article entitled “India secures defence foothold on Chagos Islands”. It states:

“India has reached an agreement with Mauritius to establish a satellite station in the Chagos archipelago, a move seen as enhancing its strategic presence in the Indian Ocean, reported Fort Lauderdale’s Maritime Executive.

Indian media said the station will track satellites and serve as a regional monitoring asset, a term often associated with signals intelligence. The exact location is unclear but is expected to be near the Diego Garcia US-UK base.

The facility is likely to mirror India’s installation on Agalega, another Mauritian island, which India has effectively annexed. Mauritius relies heavily on Indian support and functions as an offshore financial centre for India”.

Perhaps we do not need to worry too much about India—but then, maybe we should. This is completely inevitable, just as it is completely inevitable that other powers will seek to gain access to other islands.

I cannot substantiate the report, but it was widely circulated that a large Chinese delegation arrived in Port Louis immediately after 22 May, when the Mauritius treaty was signed. The provisions of this treaty invite international instability where previously peace and concord have prevailed. Thus, not only does this treaty not meet the interests of the United States by taking huge amounts of money away from defence, but it uses that money to provoke global instability where previously there was none. The report prompts key questions for both the United States and Parliament. Given that the India-Mauritius listening post deal has apparently already been done, when did His Majesty’s Government provide their consent under paragraph 3.d of Annexe 1 to the treaty? More importantly, why did they offer their consent? I hope the Minister will be able to answer that. The Government had no business doing so, because this treaty has not yet been ratified. Are we confronting a situation in which the Republic of Mauritius did this deal with India without seeking UK consent, in direct violation of Annexe 1? If they did act in this way, they have already provided us with an object lesson in how the assurances provided by this treaty, such as they are, are in fact worthless, making it very clear why we should not be ratifying the treaty.