Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Conservative — Chingford and Woodford Green

Speaking in the House of Commons on 20 October 2025

Debate

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Contribution

On the argument about the money, which comes up throughout all this and which we had in the last debate, the Government have used a dodgy system to calculate it. It is called the GDP deflator. Their own actuarial department has dismissed that completely because, of course, it is all about a forecast of where social issues will go on an island that will never have anything to do with us after all this, so we have no idea how to predict it. Finally, clause 5 makes this whole debate meaningless, because the Government can change anything they like whenever they wish to, so what the heck are we doing debating this even now?

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