Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)

I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for her closing speech. It was exactly the kind of speech I would have expected from her. It was forensic and detailed, asking absolutely legitimate questions that any respectable Opposition should put to a Government proposing this kind of Bill. I will try to answer all her questions— I was writing as quickly as I could—but I may not get through them all. The idea of a letter in the Library, explaining the detail so that everybody can see what we have to say, is a very good one. I would be happy to do that. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. It has been lively, as I suspected it might be. I might say that I agreed with some contributions more than others, and some were probably better informed than others, but that is the nature of these things. I will endeavour to respond to all the points raised by noble Lords, and we will, I hope, have further discussions in Committee on many of those. I would like to remind the House why we are scrutinising and reviewing a Bill sent to us from the other place. The Bill is essential to ensure that the treaty with Mauritius can be ratified, a treaty that is fundamental to safeguarding the operations of a critical UK-US base on Diego Garcia and to the security of British people. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said, the Bill is also vital to protecting the British citizenship rights of Chagossians. Noble Lords have questioned the legal rationale for this deal and asked what court could give a binding judgment. Let me set this out again: as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, explained well in his speech, if a long-term deal had not been reached, it is highly likely that further wide-ranging litigation would have been brought quickly against the UK. Both the International Agreements Committee and the International Relations and Defence Committee, in scrutinising the treaty, heard evidence of where these binding judgments could come from. One possibility is that Mauritius would find a dispute under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that it could bring before an arbitral tribunal under Annexe VII of the convention. That also raises the prospect that Mauritius would seek provisional measures from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Provisional measures of this type and the decision of an arbitral tribunal would each be legally binding on the UK. A further possibility is that a dispute under a multilateral treaty could be brought before the International Court of Justice. A judgment delivered in the manner by the ICJ in disputes between states may also be legally binding. There are those—we have had this ever since we started debating this issue—who question where this binding judgment might arise, but they are fundamentally missing the point here. The risk was real. International courts were already reaching judgments on the basis that Mauritius had sovereignty, and this in turn, as my noble friend Lord Browne explained, put the base at real risk. The point is that the treaty with Mauritius prevents that happening in the future. Noble Lords are perfectly entitled to take a different view on the extent of that risk; that is absolutely their right. The Government’s view is that that risk is real. Having that view, any responsible Government making that assessment has to seek to resolve it and to come to some lasting, legally enforceable arrangement with Mauritius. That is why we did the deal. Noble Lords are entitled to disagree with the Government, and I have absolutely no issue with that, but please do not impute some sort of bad intent or motive around political correctness, colonialism or any of those things. Our intention is to secure that base for the benefit of the security of our country. We did it so an agreement could be concluded on our terms, rather than it being forced upon us so that we would have to accept the imposition of an arrangement that would not have been in our favour. I am interpreting the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, on the overseas territories as an invitation to the Government to restate their longstanding and clear commitment to all our overseas territories. The Conservatives, at some points in these debates, although not recently—the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, never did this, but others did—would raise the issue of the Falkland Islands. I thought that that was the height of irresponsibility, and I am very glad that they no longer attempt to bring that question into these discussions, because it was wrong that they did that. This treaty has a complex resolution process attached to it because it needs to be long-lasting, and we are trying to cover every eventuality that might arise. That is a really good subject for us to get into in Committee, and we must test that to make sure that we have got that right. I have every confidence that the noble Baroness and her colleagues will bring to us situations that we need to hold up against that process, to make sure that we have got that right. On the notification of activities of third countries with our consent, there is a notification there. I think that is right, but it is not in any way conditional. We do not need consent. It is not about permission or any of those things. I hope that that is helpful. On the ability to make law, we had an interesting discussion at the briefing about royal prerogative and the ability of the King to make law in Diego Garcia. We need to get into that in Committee. There will be things in the Bill that, when I was sitting in the noble Baroness’s place, I would have been asking questions about, such as powers and flexibilities, the ability of Ministers to make decisions, and the various methodologies. I expect we will be having long discussions about negative and affirmative procedures, for example, and law-making power is one such issue. I want to address some of the points that were made regarding the Chagossian community. As I stated in my opening speech, this Government deeply regret how the Chagossians were removed from the islands. This is a community that the Government are committed to working with and supporting in the months and years ahead. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. She made a compelling and genuine contribution on this important issue, as did the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and I commend those who have been working on this for very many years. She did her party proud, and I respect the longstanding commitment that she and others have had. The Bill ensures that there will be no adverse impact on Chagossians’ nationality rights as a result of the treaty. Chagossians will not lose their current rights to hold or claim British citizenship, and no one will lose existing British Overseas Territory citizenship status. The Bill does, however, remove Chagossians’ ability to acquire British Overseas Territory citizenship in the future, because once the treaty comes into force, BIOT will not be an overseas territory. On the trust fund, the noble Lord, Lord Horam, raised the possibility of an exchange of letters on the future treatment of Chagossians under this fund. This is, again, a genuine issue that we ought to explore. I appreciate that noble Lords will want more detail on how the trust fund will operate. I look forward to discussing this in Committee. Who knows? We might be able to reach some sort of agreement on that issue. On the citizenship law, which was raised by one or two noble Lords opposite—it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—there have been mentions of section 76B of the Mauritian criminal code and concerns that Chagossians are leaving Mauritius for fear of being prosecuted for their affiliation with the UK. This is really important: no one has ever been prosecuted under this law; but just because no one has ever been subject to it, that does not make it right. Last week, the Mauritian Government repealed this section, and, as of April 2025, 94% of Chagossians with British nationality also had Mauritian citizenship. On the right to self-determination, there have been questions during the debate, and leading up to it, about consultation with Chagossians. The negotiations on the treaty were necessarily between states—the UK and Mauritius—and it is true that we have prioritised the operation of the base on Diego Garcia. That has been our priority. There may be people here who disagree with that and who would have preferred us to prioritise other issues, and I respect their right to hold that view, but that is not the view of the Government. We wanted to protect the base. There were some, including the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, who raised the right to self-determination for the Chagossians. I have followed the noble Baroness’s career for many years; I do not know why, but I have always been rather attached to following what she does and says, and I have a real long-standing respect for her. I completely understand why she wants to raise this issue, and why it matters so much to her. The fact is that the Chagos Archipelago has no permanent population and has never been self-governing. No question of self-determination for its population, therefore, legally arises. The English courts, noting the conclusion of the ICJ in the 2019 advisory opinion, have proceeded on the basis that the relevant right to self-determination in the context of BIOT was that of Mauritians rather than Chagossians. Both the English courts and the European Court of Human Rights have considered, in a series of judgments since the 1970s, the related but distinct question of an alleged right of abode or other rights said to flow from that. On each occasion, the English courts and the European Court of Human Rights have ultimately dismissed these claims. The transfer of sovereignty, therefore, does not deprive Chagossians of any existing rights. This is a long-standing legal position that previous UK Governments have also adopted, including in claims brought as recently as 2020. That all sounds very legalistic and cold; nevertheless, that is the legal position as it stands.