Lord Lilley (Con)

My Lords, I apologise to the House for being absent for my amendments in the first group. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hannan for moving them on my behalf with, I am sure, greater elegance than I would have been able to bring. Were I a believer in conspiracy theories, I would imagine that President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer had got together to prevent me from returning to this House, but I am sure that they both have more serious issues, given their lack of popularity in their respective countries, than dealing with me. My Amendment 14 seeks for the Government to negotiate guarantees from the Government of Mauritius that Mauritius will not enforce its duties under the Pelindaba treaty on the base of Diego Garcia and to ensure that, if it were to do so, the sovereignty of the base would revert to the UK. The Pelindaba treaty seems pretty clear that it excludes the use of any part of any African country. Mauritius counts itself as an African country. When it takes sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago, which we count as part of Africa, it will preclude any of those countries from having any nuclear weapons or armaments on that territory. It would therefore be very difficult, on a simple reading of the Pelindaba treaty, for us to use that for our nuclear submarines or for any aircraft carrying nuclear weapons. The Mauritius treaty, as it is written, says: “Each party confirms that none of its existing international obligations or arrangements now in force or effect between it and any third party is in conflict with the provisions of this Agreement”. If that means that the parties to the agreement intend to ignore any other agreements that they have that may conflict with this, that is all right with me, but the trouble is that it then goes on to say, “nothing in this Agreement shall affect the status of existing international obligations or arrangements except as expressly provided for in this Agreement”. That would appear to suggest that nothing in this agreement will override the Pelindaba treaty unless it is expressly stated in this agreement. It is not expressly stated. I have every confidence in the two Ministers’ patriotism and that they would put the defence of this country manifestly above other minor considerations. I am sure that if it was left to them, we could rely on all this, and I could sit down and not pursue the argument further. But we know that this Government say that their highest priority is international law. If they are now saying that they are prepared to ignore legal agreements and enter into agreements with countries expressly on the basis that they ignore international agreements into which they have entered, we are in a difficult position. I notice the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, is in his place. Perhaps he has come especially to give us assurances that he will not, in this instance, express the supremacy of international law, and that ultimately the sovereignty and independence of this country, its military defence and its alliance with the United States take priority over those matters. Now, if we can have that assurance, that is fine by me. I appreciate that here we are dealing with very sensitive matters, and I do not expect the Minister to go into fine detail, but I would like the Government to give me greater assurance than I get from reading the treaty that the Pelindaba treaty is not going, at some future stage, to be cited by Mauritius as a reason why we cannot use nuclear-powered vessels or nuclear-equipped weapons, armaments and aircraft from the base. Unless we have that assurance, we must be rather worried.