Contributions
1,897 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillMy Lords, I am happy to respond. As I understand it, details about the Mauritian marine protected area were published only last week, or it may have been the week before. There…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillThe question was: how much is going to be from the ODA budget? I have answered that, and I do not know how to answer that any more clearly. As for how much comes from the FCDO and…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI have not given way; I have had enough of this. The noble Lord should probably write to me and explain his question, because we are clearly not getting very far with this. If the…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillYou cannot pay for a military base out of your development budget.18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI do not know how much will be from the FCDO and how much will be from the MoD. It is not ODA, which is the bit I am responsible for. I do not fully understand—perhaps the noble…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillIt is not coming out of the ODA budget—that is my point—but that does not mean it is not coming out of the FCDO budget, which is different. Does that help the noble Lord?18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillBut the noble Lord did ask me about ODA.18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillIt is not capped, actually. Not all ODA money is spent by the FCDO. The MoD spends ODA as well. Not all money spent by the FCDO is ODA. You can spend ODA only on certain…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI simply cannot answer that because it would depend so much on the circumstances and on who would be culpable. I do not know. I will think about that and come back to the noble…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI understand fully the nature of the noble and gallant Lord’s concern. He has explained it well and repeatedly, and I have committed to come back to him with a further response. I…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillWe do not expect to be confronted with this situation in the case of Diego Garcia. I am sure there will be adaptations to mitigate this, as there already have been. In the event…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI would never deliberately not answer a question from the noble Lord. I have set out what has been agreed so far, and I have explained that the commission is subject to…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI am not sure that diplomacy is quite the thing for the noble Lord to aspire to. We will move to discussing the amendments that deal with the financial issues and the payments to…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI thank noble Lords for their speeches. A host of amendments, as we have heard, have been tabled in relation to citizenship rights. Some of them come from a bit of a…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillThat is a constructive proposition. The Government are very willing to engage in that kind of conversation and I note the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, which we will come…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI think we can. I do not think we can call it self-determination in the legally applicable sense, but I agree, and I think Parliament agrees too, that the Chagossians deserve the…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillMy Lords, it is worth restating—and many of the contributions this afternoon have stated this too—that this Government deeply regret the way the Chagossians were removed from the…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI am saying that the United States publicly and in terms supports the treaty that we have agreed as a Parliament to ratify with Mauritius.18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillI am very happy to respond to that, and I am very sorry for not including that in my closing remarks. Obviously, the UK and the US are party to that treaty, and parties to…18 Nov 2025HANSARDDiego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory BillWe are not saying that this goes to the Security Council. We are saying that there could be further rulings. With respect, that is a bit of a red herring. There could be rulings…18 Nov 2025