Lord Lilley (Con)

My Lords, I would like to address Amendments 11 and 12 in my name, which both relate to the terms of the lease. Over the years, I have often heard leaseholders wish they had, or propose to acquire, the freehold. They feel that, as leaseholders, they are in a very inferior position and that the freeholder has the whip hand and, of course, at the end of the lease, the freeholder, like as not, gets everything back and leaseholders potentially lose everything. This is the first time I have ever heard of someone wanting to swap a freehold for a leasehold and, at the same time, claiming that they will be more secure as a result. Of course, they will not—and even less secure, given the terms of this agreement. Amendment 11 relates to whether or not the lease is renewable. The lease is dealt with in Article 13 of the treaty, which says that it has a duration of 99 years. What happens at the end of 99 years? Is it automatically renewable? No. Under Article 13.5, the UK has a right to first refusal for a further 40 years on the same terms as offered to any third state. There we have it. Mauritius can offer the UK-US base to a third state in 99 years’ time and force the UK and USA to outbid some other bidder—it might be China, India, Iran or any other country with interests in the Indian Ocean around it, such as Saudi Arabia. There are lots of countries that can afford and might like to have this base. We would have to outbid them to retain what had been maintained and invested in for the previous 99 years. I have no reason to suppose that it would not be as valuable in the future then as it is now.