Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 13 April.

“There has been much speculation in recent weeks about the state of the Diego Garcia treaty and the associated Bill, and—with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will take this opportunity to update the House.

We have debated at length the critical importance of the military base on Diego Garcia to the national security of the United Kingdom and that of our allies. The base allows us to project the full array of military capabilities in one of the most important regions for international stability and global trade. It is vital to the countering of terrorism and threats from state adversaries, and protects Britons at home and overseas.

As the House knows, the operation of the base has been under threat for decades. The Government inherited a situation in which there was no legal certainty for future operations, and the threat of the UK losing our ability to operate effectively for us and our allies was and remains real, as those on the Opposition Benches know full well. The status quo is untenable, and ignoring the situation would have been reckless and irresponsible. The previous Government knew that, which is why they opened negotiations with Mauritius, why they put sovereignty on the table, and why they had 11 rounds of talks and agreed the vast majority of the treaty.

I am proud that this Government completed the process in May last year. The Diego Garcia treaty puts the base on a secure legal footing for the first time in decades. It gives us complete operational freedom, and puts in place important safeguards to protect the base from outside threats. In short, the treaty ensures the continued contribution of the base to UK national security, and to the security of our allies, for generations.

The Diego Garcia military base was founded as a jointly operated base by the UK and the United States. It is one of the foundation stones on which our close defence and security partnership was built. Of course, the previous Government knew that, which is why they took action to start the negotiations when they did. For that reason, the treaty to protect the base was negotiated in close co-ordination with the United States, under both this and the previous US Administration. The treaty was tested thoroughly at all levels of the United States system under two Administrations, and found to be robust.

Throughout this process, we have always been clear that we could not let the treaty enter into force without US support. We had that support when the treaty was signed, and we have had it consistently since. President Trump called it ‘very strong’ and ‘powerful’. Secretary Rubio welcomed it as a ‘historic agreement’ that

‘secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation of the joint US-UK military facility at Diego Garcia’.

Nothing in the treaty has changed since then, and the United States’ support has been consistent in viewing the agreement as the best means of protecting operations on this vital military asset.

However, the position of the US President appears to have changed in recent weeks. This means that, in practical terms, it has become impossible to agree at political level an update to the 1966 UK-US agreement concerning the availability of defence purposes of the British Indian Ocean Territory, known as the exchange of notes, which is necessary to ratify the treaty. Right honourable and honourable Members will know that updates to the exchange of notes are nothing unusual; in fact, they have been updated periodically to ensure that the governance arrangements for the base remain fit for purpose in a changing world. They were updated in 1972, 1976, 1987 and 1999, and were rolled over in 2016. They now need a further update in the light of the Diego Garcia treaty. We have previously debated this issue in this House, and I know that my counterpart, Baroness Chapman, has similarly discussed it in the other place.

Officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and from the Ministry of Defence have been working with United States counterparts over many months and have made excellent progress in updating the agreement. I can confirm that a finalised text was agreed at official level and is ready for political clearance and signature, but due to the new comments to which I referred, this process will obviously not proceed on the previously agreed timeframe. Because of the delays in agreeing the exchange of notes, the Diego Garcia Bill cannot complete its passage in this parliamentary Session, and it cannot be carried over due to its advanced progression through Parliament. The Government nevertheless remain confident that the Diego Garcia treaty is the best means of protecting the full operation of the military base for us and our allies for future generations. We will continue to work with the United States on the agreement and the way forward, and we will continue to engage closely with Mauritius.

In parallel with the geostrategic developments, there is the human story. I refer to the Chagossians, who have rightly been raised by many right honourable and honourable Members, and who were removed from the archipelago in the 1960s and 1970s. As I have said on many occasions, the Government deeply regret the manner of their removal, and we remain committed to building a relationship with Chagossian communities that is built on respect and an acknowledgment of the wrongs of the past. The delay to the treaty will be sad news to many Chagossians—although I accept not all—who rightly see it as the only viable means of a sustainable programme of resettlement, which Mauritius would be able to implement under its terms. As I have said on many occasions, we also want to see the recommencement of the programme of heritage visits, which we understand are so important to Chagossians, particularly to the older generations.

These are times of great uncertainty and acute risk to British interests. Our security and prosperity are under threat at home and overseas, and this is a moment for calm and considered reflection, not cheap political point scoring by Opposition parties.

The threats facing the future operation of the Diego Garcia base are real, as the Opposition well know, and the Diego Garcia treaty remains the best means of securing the vital military base on the island. We will continue to work with partners, including the United States and Mauritius, to protect our national security and that of our allies. I commend this Statement to the House”.

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?

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.

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.