Lord Callanan (Con)

My Lords, this amendment seeks to prevent the United Kingdom being responsible for asylum seekers and refugees arriving in the Chagos Archipelago. In moving this amendment, it is important that I remind the Committee of the background to this issue. In October 2021, a group of Tamil speakers who were apparently seeking to travel to Canada, bizarrely, by boat, foundered in the Indian Ocean and were escorted to Diego Garcia. These were the first people to claim asylum on Diego Garcia, they were kept on the island for several years and, in October 2024, the Government confirmed plans to relocate them to the UK for their legal claims to be processed. At the time, the Government said that this was to provide the asylum seekers with “greater safety and well-being”. On 3 December 2024, it was reported in the Guardian—and of course I always believe everything that is reported in the Guardian—that lawyers and those campaigning for the asylum seekers to be relocated called their arrival in the UK a “big day for justice”. One of those interviewed by that newspaper—and we always believe what the Guardian says—was quoted as saying: “We cannot believe we are finally in the UK … We feel we have reached paradise”. My amendment seeks to probe the approach that would be taken to any future arrivals on the Chagos Archipelago. Will they be handed to Mauritius, to which the Government want to hand over sovereignty, or will they be handled by the British Government under this treaty? Has the Minister’s department made an assessment of the risk of the Tamils’ arrivals being transferred to the UK, opening another front in our fight to tackle illegal immigration? I do not expect the numbers to be great—I hope that they will not be great —but we need an answer on this important subject. I also welcome Amendments 27 and 36 in this group, tabled in the names of my noble friend Lord Lilley and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, respectively. This is clearly something that noble Lords across the Committee are concerned about. I cannot imagine that this subject was not discussed with Mauritius during the negotiations, but I look forward to the Minister giving us some clarity on this issue and telling us whether these factors were in fact discussed with Mauritius. I beg to move.