Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)

My Lords, as some comments were made on the previous day in Committee about how few Members there were on the Government Benches, I thought it might be nice to say how pleased I am to see so many tonight. I am sorry that the Lib Dems still have not produced many people, but anyway: it is very nice to see so many people. Amendment 47 is a stand-alone amendment, which again does not really affect the security aspects of Diego Garcia or the treaty in the sense of changing it hugely. It asks the Secretary of State to “produce a report projecting the population growth of the Chagossian people over the next 30 years, including their global diaspora, and the impact of this Act upon that projected growth, and assess the implications for international recognition of their national identity”. One of the Government’s recent arguments for the treaty and the Bill is that the Americans want it. They have explained that the United States is troubled about having a military base on an island with contested sovereignty, and that it has said that until matters are resolved and there is legal certainty, it will not invest in the base. That is probably précising the argument. The Government argue that the treaty and the Bill will deliver the requisite legal certainty. The argument is based on the assumption, if this Bill becomes an Act and the Mauritius treaty can then be ratified, that all the legal uncertainties will be put to bed. It is my contention in moving Amendment 47 that if this Act passes and the Mauritius treaty is ratified—two things I very much hope will still not happen—all that will happen is that one legal uncertainty will be replaced by another, and the Americans will have made no progress towards getting that certainty. Instead of the uncertainty arising from the Republic of Mauritius contesting United Kingdom sovereignty over the islands, we will be presented with the uncertainty that arises from the Chagossian people contesting the Republic of Mauritius’s sovereignty. I get the sense that, in removing the basis for Chagossians living in the United Kingdom to continue to enjoy British Overseas Territory citizenship after the passage of this Act, there is a desire to try to collapse Chagossian civic identity into British civic identity, to the extent that Chagossians reside in the UK, so that distinctive Chagossian civic identity disappears. The truth, however, is that the identity of the Chagossian community in exile will not go away, resting as it does principally across three states: the United Kingdom, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The number of Chagossians is increasing and they are becoming more animated in their commitment to securing self-determination as a people defined, even in exile, by their relationship to their islands. There is a sense that, until this point, the impact of the Chagossian identity in international relations has been somewhat muted, in that their desire is not to be returned to their islands to become a sovereign, independent state. The Chagossians who issued the statement of self-determination, who have written to us and whom we have met, were very clear on this point. Since they see themselves as connected to the UK, there has never been a need hitherto for them to assert their identity and seek international personality to claim the islands. This will change completely if the islands are transferred to the Republic of Mauritius. Even while the United Kingdom has shamefully failed to resettle the islands, they have remained under British sovereignty, which over 99% of well over 3,000 Chagossians are recorded as saying that they want. Obviously, they do not want things as they are at present, but to be resettled. In this context, the contention of my amendment is that the Government and the United States of America need to think carefully about what is likely to happen to the Chagossians as a people in exile. I believe that, rather than allowing themselves to be absorbed into other countries, they will continue increasing in number and adopting an ever-stronger and more resilient identity, and that in times to come we will look back on this Bill and this treaty, if it goes through, as something that has made even more uncertainty over Diego Garcia. I beg to move.