Priti Patel

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. We have basically just heard from the Minister that the Government’s betrayal of the British Chagossian community continues. We have just had more details on how bad this deal is for the Chagossian community. Labour’s surrender of British sovereign territory means that future decisions on access to and resettlement on most of the archipelago, the ancestral home of Chagossians, are now left in the hands of—guess what?—a foreign Government. Can the Minister confirm if British Chagossians will need to become Mauritian citizens to have any hope of being entitled to or eligible for resettlement under the future resettlement programme? That is a simple yes or no—it sounds like the answer is an absolute yes. This is a country that, until only weeks ago, had an offence on its statute books of “misrepresenting the sovereignty of Mauritius”, and it is a country from which hundreds of Chagossians have fled to Britain in recent weeks. By the way, housing this community across the country is adding to the pressure on local authorities. Does the Minister recognise the sheer madness of this plan? The Government have confirmed that, despite this Government giving the Government of Mauritius £40 million of British taxpayers’ money for the trust fund, Britain has no proper representation on the board and no control over how the funds are spent. There will be just one UK-based Chagossian representative on the board, chosen not by the British Chagossian community, but—guess what?—by the Prime Minister of Mauritius. Can the Minister tell us if he thinks this is acceptable, and did the Government—I cannot say the Minister specifically—press for greater Chagossian and British representation on the board? Can he tell us exactly what UK delegations have been doing in Mauritius this year, who they have met and what has been discussed? On the so-called contact group, why have the Government refused to seek the views of the British Chagossian community on this surrender treaty? They have instead chosen to outsource this vital function to a House of Lords Select Committee, whose survey, as we have seen online, has been open to manipulation by and interference from the Mauritian Government. It is no wonder that the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called the Government out for their betrayal of the Chagossian community. That is massively embarrassing, particularly when we have a Government of human rights lawyers. What is the Minister’s response to this UN committee? Will he suspend the ratification of this appalling treaty, which is what the UN calls for, and importantly, say sorry to hard-pressed taxpayers in this country, who are forking out £35 billion for this shameful betrayal?