Lord Callanan (Con)

My Lords, we have had lengthy debates on the cost of the treaty. The Government have consistently told us that their estimates tell us that the treaty will cost only £3.4 billion, with payments averaging £101 million per annum over the 99-year life of the treaty. We fundamentally disagree with that. My noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Altrincham forensically picked apart the Government’s figures in Committee, leaving us in a position of serious and damaging uncertainty. It is unacceptable that we are being asked to approve a Bill enabling a treaty without a clear assessment of the cost of compliance with that treaty. While the Government continue to repeat the figure of £3.4 billion, we now know, using other accountancy mechanisms, that it will cost something approaching £34 billion. As I said in the debate on a previous group, we are heading towards the highest taxes ever. The Government show no appetite for bringing spending under control, but apparently it is fine to hand over £34 billion to Mauritius for islands we already own. The treaty is a stark example of the Government’s fiscal imprudence. We know that the treaty was not necessary in law and that it was a political choice—and we would never have agreed to it. That is £34 billion the Government could have chosen to spend in other ways. That money should be in the pockets of British taxpayers; it certainly should not be used to fund tax cuts in Mauritius. However, that is the position that Ministers, advised by their international lawyer friends, have put us in. My Amendment 39 would require the Government to publish a schedule of payments to Mauritius, including the planned dates of those payments, so that independent experts can make their own assessment of the true cost of the treaty to British taxpayers. The Government, who seem so keen to defend the treaty, must surely think it is good value for money. It follows, therefore, that the Minister should have no problem at all in setting out in full what the schedule of payments is so that we can examine it. I hope the Minister will be able to give that commitment today. With Amendment 47, we are asking the Government to publish the real cost of this treaty. The details provided in the Explanatory Memorandum which accompanied the publication of the treaty were helpful, and the Minister referred to those details in Committee. But we still have vastly contrasting estimates which show that the treaty could cost as much as 10 times more than the Government claim. We need to see more detail from the Government on these costings to ensure transparency for the hard-working British taxpayer. I beg to move.