Member

That brings me to my third point and the bulk of what I want to talk about. Exactly as that committee suggests, why are we not consulting the people most concerned in a meaningful way—the only people who have ever constituted a permanent population of the Chagos Archipelago? This should be an utterly uncontentious point. I hope that all of us believe in the basics of democracy and self-determination. Every party here, according to its principles, should be standing up for the rights of the Chagossian people: my party, because we believe in sovereignty and take the security interests seriously; for the Liberal Democrats the clue is in their name, as the party pioneered the spread of representative government; and Labour has always argued for the spread of the franchise to include everybody, every group, and to empower people who otherwise did not have a voice. As I see my old friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, leaving the room, I add that there are considerable ecological objections to handing over maritime preservation. In fact, everyone, other than the one or two former Permanent Secretaries of the FCDO from whom we heard earlier, should be in favour of asking the people most concerned.