The Earl of Leicester (Con)

My Lords, in this amendment, we are talking about a democratic study of the Chagossian people. However, I want to speak about a matter that has been mentioned briefly by my noble friend Lord Callanan and that goes to the very heart of democratic integrity and the dignity of an entire people. I wish to address a survey issued by the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee that aims to capture “Chagossian views on the Agreement with Mauritius concerning the Chagos Archipelago”. This survey cannot be relied on. It is methodologically flawed, structurally careless, open to manipulation and in several aspects dangerously misleading. The Chagossian people, who have endured decades of dispossession, displacement and injustice, deserve far better than an instrument that falls short at every level. First, on the technical design, the survey is hosted on Microsoft Forms, a rudimentary platform that any undergraduate research supervisor would reject for a project involving even minimal verification. There are no safeguards against duplicate submissions, no protection against cyber manipulation, no identity checks and no mechanism whatever to confirm whether a respondent is actually Chagossian. For a survey that concerns sovereignty, citizenship, resettlement and the legacy of one of the gravest forced removals in modern British history, this is astonishing. It leaves the process exposed to interference by anyone, anywhere, with any motive. Unfortunately, that is not a theoretical risk. The survey still has a week to run, and we already have deeply troubling reports from Mauritius. There are claims, supported by video evidence which I have seen and direct testimonials, that Mauritian officials and intermediaries have been filling out the survey on behalf of Chagossians who cannot read English, cannot understand the political implications and cannot write their own responses. Even more seriously, multiple Chagossians have told us that they oppose the agreement with Mauritius yet believe that they have been marked down as supporting it in this survey. If this is true, then a foreign Government are, in effect, interfering with a House of Lords committee’s evidence-gathering process. Not only does this compromise the validity of the survey but it threatens the independence and integrity of Parliament itself. Let us be absolutely clear: this is not a consultation but contamination. Let me take your Lordships through some of the survey questions. It begins with text that states that: “A new law implementing the Agreement is currently being debated … and members of the House of Lords want to hear … opinions … before voting on it”. What it does not say—and very much ought to—is that this agreement is not yet in force, that ratification is required and that Parliament can still reject it. The omission is misleading and may lead many to believe the treaty is inevitable. When you are asking a displaced people about the fate of their homeland, clarity is not optional; it is essential. The survey repeatedly instructs respondents not to provide any identifying information. At the same time, it allows anyone in the world to submit answers as many times as they like, with no checks. There is no way to confirm whether responses come from Chagossians, non-Chagossians, organised political activists or even automated submissions. I have personally seen a text message from a high-ranking Mauritius official stating: “My guys in the Mauritian Government are”— I will change the wording—very worried. “They are planning for civil unrest when they cancel the tax cuts”. It is clear what the Mauritians want. For a consultation that claims to express Chagossian views, this alone renders the entire exercise invalid.