Wendy Morton

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Chairman, and to speak to the amendments that stand in my name and in the names of other right hon. and hon. Members, as we open this Committee of the whole House to debate Labour’s Chagos surrender Bill. It has been more than a year since the surrender of the Chagos islands was announced, with the Prime Minister, the then Foreign Secretary—now the Deputy Prime Minister—and the Attorney General waving the white flag of surrender and putting the demands of their left-wing lawyer friends above the British national interest. Since then, Labour has denied this House a vote on the whole treaty under the 21-day process in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and has kept details secret from us. Over in Mauritius, the Prime Minister of that country has been bragging about how he squeezed concession after concession after concession out of Labour. It is shameful that we have found out more about the treaty from debates in the Mauritius Parliament and statements by its politicians than from Ministers accountable to this House. It has been five months since the Prime Minister of this country signed away £35 billion of British taxpayers’ money, stumbling through a press conference rather than coming to this House to face scrutiny and challenge. At a time of serious fiscal challenge for the public finances, Labour has imposed a £35 billion surrender tax on our country—money that could fund public services here in Britain or support an easing of the tax burden. Instead, it will be handed over to a foreign Government who are using this resource to cut taxes for their citizens. Not only is it shameful, but Ministers have tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the British people by using accountancy methodologies and valuations to try to show a far lower cost. Even then, it is an extraordinary figure of £3.4 billion. The Chancellor may struggle with numbers, but the British people do not. They can add up, and they see what the real cost of this is. On top of that, Ministers still cannot tell us from which budgets in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence the money will come.