Contribution
My Lords, I was going to say that this has been an excellent debate, but it has not really been much of a debate seeing as nobody from the Labour side has bothered to get up and try to defend the Government’s actions on this matter. Not even the Foreign Office trade union crowd on the Cross Benches have come along to justify the Government’s actions on this. I note from the media reports that apparently the Mauritian AG is in London for discussions, no doubt to celebrate his brilliantly successful negotiation. He will probably find that the Foreign Office has given him another £100 million today for his trouble in coming over here in the first place.
It would not be right for me to begin my contributions without mentioning the excellent forensic speeches of my noble friends Lord Altrincham and Lady Noakes at Second Reading. It seemed to me very convincing that the Government have increasingly got their numbers wrong. I look forward to the noble Baroness attempting to explain her financial figures again.
I am sure that some noble Lords will argue—maybe the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, will—that this agreement has been made and there is nothing we can do about it. They might say that it is an unfortunate oversight, but we cannot change the agreement. However, the treaty, as we have discussed previously, has not yet been ratified; it is not final. The Government could still change their approach. It is unlikely, and it would take political will, but everything is possible.
Now that we know that the treaty is not inevitable and that the overall cost expected when the agreement was reached was wrong, I hope Ministers will take the opportunity to reconsider. In any other walk of life, a decision-maker faced with a significantly higher cost than expected would reassess their position. Why are Ministers failing to take that responsible approach with taxpayers’ money? The Chancellor will get up next week and tell us that the country is bust, and that we need to raise taxes and cut spending, but the FCDO seems to take no account of the extra costs when negotiating this agreement.
My Amendment 22 would require a review of the overall financial cost of the agreement. With such uncertainty about the overall costs, I think this is an entirely reasonable amendment that would give greater transparency to taxpayers on how much of their money will be sent to Mauritius, over time, as we have said before, to fund tax cuts over there. We pay more tax over here, but the Mauritians will be able to cut their taxes with the money that we are very generously sending to them.
As I said, on value for money we are being told to expect spending cuts at the Budget on 26 November. Before the Government cut a single extra service for the British people, Ministers should first consider cutting their surrender deal with the Mauritian Government. In my view, most of the British public would be aghast when presented with the fact that the Government have surrendered territory to a foreign state and simultaneously somehow found themselves paying for the privilege. This is a clear failure to deliver value for money to taxpayers.
My Amendment 70 would require the Government to make a statement explaining why they believe that each payment to Mauritius represents value for money. My Amendment 75 would require the publication of a schedule of expected payments to Mauritius along with their dates. The Government should not resist measures which increase transparency on the financial elements of the agreement.
I gave a wry smile when the noble Lord, Lord Weir, asked the Minister for the breakdown of the costs of this agreement between the MoD budget and the FCDO budget. I hope he has more success than I have in asking this question, because I have asked it five times and she has refused to tell me how much is being paid out of the different budgets. One was beginning to suspect that she does not even know how much money we are handing over on behalf of this deal.
I additionally ask the Minister what powers Ministers have to ensure that the money we hand over to Mauritius is spent as agreed. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, particularly highlighted the trust fund supposedly set up for the benefit of Chagossians, but how they spend it is entirely within the control of Mauritius. There have been well-documented corruption cases in Mauritius; how do we know how that money will be spent? I think we should be told or Ministers should at least seek to find out.
Finally, Amendment 74 relates to a slightly separate question on the part of the UK-Mauritius agreement relating to the employment of Mauritians on the Diego Garcia military base. I tabled it to ask the noble Baroness some specific questions on the practical effect of the article of this agreement. Can she confirm whether this article means Mauritians will be prioritised for employment on the Diego Garcia military base over, for example, British citizens or Chagossians? Who ultimately would their employer be? This also speaks to value for money. Can the Minister confirm whether her department has made any assessment of the impact of the provisions relating to the employment of Mauritians and how much that will contribute to the cost of running the base?