T

The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 25 November 2025

Debate

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I was not sure whether anybody else wanted to follow that last speech. I do not think I have ever seen the Prime Minister drink prosecco—he would prefer a pint, I think. Anyway, I thank noble Lords for their speeches on this quite important set of amendments, and I would be very surprised if we did not come back to some of these issues on Report, because, for all the nonsense we have just heard, there are actually some very thoughtful and quite important considerations here. Someone put it very well when they said that, while they might not agree with everything we are doing, there is a shared view across the House that we need to do as best we can through this process for the Chagossian communities. Regarding Amendments 17, 26 and 78, the Chagossians are already entitled to work on the base and have done so. There are a range of job opportunities on Diego Garcia, open to Chagossians with British, Mauritian and Seychelles citizenship. A link to vacancies advertised by KBR, the main contractor responsible for recruiting and managing support staff at the base, is already available on the GOV.UK pages, setting out UK government support for Chagossians. On Amendment 78 from the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—

More from The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)

Other recent Hansard contributions by the same speaker.

About Hansard

Hansard is the official verbatim record of proceedings in the UK Parliament. Every word spoken in the Commons and Lords is recorded and published — this page is a single contribution from that record.

Partner sites