Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Third Reading

My Lords, I have it in command from His Majesty the King to acquaint the House that His Majesty, having been informed of the Report of the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill, has consented to place his interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

Clause 6: Commencement and short title

Amendment 1

1: Clause 6, page 4, line 38, leave out from “Parliament” to end of line 41 Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would make all orders under clause 6(1) subject to parliamentary control in the form of negative procedure.

My Lords, this government amendment will change the parliamentary procedure applicable to the delegated power in Clause 6. With this amendment, all instruments made using that power would be subject to the negative procedure. Previously, no parliamentary procedure applied unless the power was used to amend, repeal or revoke Acts of Parliament or statutory instruments made under them.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his contribution to this. I am glad that we were able to agree on a sensible compromise which puts into effect one of the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I hope that this assures the noble Lord and the DPRRC that the Government have listened to the views of noble Lords and are willing to find compromises where they are sensible. I beg to move.

My Lords, I want to say a big thank you to the Minister for her engagement following Report and for tabling this amendment by way of, as she says, what I hope is very much an agreeable compromise.

While the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee made the good point that Henry VIII powers should only exceptionally be subject to other than the affirmative procedure, in fact, when one looks at the detail of the Bill in the Government’s further response, it is quite clear that it would be excessive for the House to be detained on an affirmative debate on some of this legislation in relation to what are clearly not controversial matters. However, establishing the principle that all statutory orders should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny is, I think, important. I am very glad that the Government have accepted that.

Amendment 1 agreed.

Bill read a third time.

Motion

That the Bill do now pass.

I am grateful to noble Lords for their engagement on this crucial legislation, which secures a vital element of the UK’s national security and the UK’s transatlantic defence partnership. I thank noble Lords across the House for their expertise, which they have used to scrutinise the security of the base, the costs of the treaty, support mechanisms for the Chagossian community and environmental conservation provisions, to name a few.

The UK-Mauritius treaty protects the Diego Garcia military base and ensures that the UK retains full control over this vital asset. This in turn will protect our national security for generations, ensure that the UK keeps unique and vital capabilities to deal with a wide range of threats, and keep the British people safe. The Bill ensures that the treaty can be ratified. As the world grows more dangerous, so too does the importance of the base for our national security. Noble Lords will not need to be told how crucial it is that the treaty is ratified and the base protected in the ever-shifting geopolitical landscape of our age.

We have had extensive debate in this House, and it has been good debate. I thank noble Lords on this side of the Floor, including my noble friend Lord Beamish, for their thoughtful and insightful contributions. I thank noble Lords from across the House for their thoughtful contributions throughout the passage of the Bill, in particular the noble Lords, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, Lord Hannay, Lord Jay and Lord Purvis of Tweed. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Hannan and Lord Lilley, for their exuberant speeches, even if I have not always agreed with them. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Foster and Lady Hoey, and the noble Lords, Lord Morrow and Lord Weir, for their passionate speeches. I thank my noble friend Lord Coaker for his support on leading the Bill. I thank my honourable friends in the other place, the Minister for Overseas Territories and the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, who have spoken at length with Peers about the detail of the Bill.

Moved by

At end insert “but that this House regrets that the UK-Mauritius Agreement concerning the Chagos Archipelago including Diego Garcia does not secure the long-term future of the Diego Garcia Military Base, creates uncertainty over the continuing unrestricted use of the Military Base and imposes £35 billion of costs on UK taxpayers for which the Government has no mandate, and that the Government failed to consult the Chagossian people before signing the Treaty”.

My Lords, throughout our debates on the Bill, we have had, as the Minister said, many robust exchanges, and the Bill will go to the other place with four amendments passed by your Lordships’ House. However, it has become increasingly clear throughout those debates that this deal fails even on the terms set out for it by its ministerial proponents.

They have told us repeatedly that we need this deal to provide legal certainty—“Look at the advisory opinion by the ICJ”, they tell us. We are told that if we do not give away the islands then all sorts of unpleasant judgments might follow in various unspecified fora. My noble friend Lord Lilley has been forensic in questioning the Government on exactly where these adverse rulings might emanate, given that the ICJ itself would surely be excluded from any such decisions and that disputes involving the UK and Commonwealth countries were specifically excluded from its mandate when we first acceded to it. We have heard various mutterings about the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and even the International Telecommunication Union, but no definitive response. Therefore, we have an advisory ICJ opinion, from a panel containing Russian and Chinese judge—those doughty campaigners for the concept of international law, seemingly applying to everyone except themselves—and, with great seriousness, Ministers tell us that this opinion must be respected.

However, we now have an additional opinion from another UN body: the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which, ironically, contains Mauritius as a member. A few weeks ago, this committee published a formal decision calling for the suspension of treaty ratification. As far as I am aware, the Foreign Office has ignored it and is yet to even comment on the ruling. So we have two diametrically opposed opinions from different UN bodies, one of which is to be obeyed without hesitation while the other, apparently, is to be completely ignored.

Ministers then tell us that they have fully secured the future of the Diego Garcia base, which will be able to continue operations exactly as before. However, they have manifestly failed to explain how that can possibly be the case when Mauritius is a signatory to the Pelindaba treaty which prohibits the placing of any nuclear weapons on any African territory, which Diego Garcia would become under this deal. Nobody has been asking Ministers to disclose secret defence information, but we know from openly published sources that the base has been utilised for the transportation of nuclear weapons on planes and submarines. How can that possibly be compatible with Mauritius’s obligations under the Pelindaba treaty?

One of the jewels in the crown of the British Indian Ocean Territory is one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, a tremendous achievement for the natural world of which we can all rightly be very proud. Ministers have reassured us that Mauritius has agreed to continue that protection, except for small amounts of what they call “artisanal fishing”. Yet, the Mauritian Fisheries Minister said last year:

“what stops me tomorrow to say that I am going to give fishing licence for any fishing trawler company or any fishing vessel to go to any part of Chagos; to fish and to bring the catch to be landed at our port … We have the authority, the moral authority, legal authority, legitimate authority to fish in our exclusive economic zone”.