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Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

My Lords, I will please the Government by being extremely brief, because I spoke at length at Second Reading and in Committee and have contributed to every Question we have had on this subject.

I agree entirely with the noble Baronesses, Lady Hoey and Lady Meyer. Why do we have this indecent rush? Why can the Government not wait until the UK High Court case judgment? Why are we having Third Reading so quickly after Report? I just do not understand why the Government are pushing this so quickly, particularly when they know that many noble Lords and noble Baronesses are still away for the first part of this week.

Two very important developments have taken place, which have been referred to already, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has 18 independent experts. Their role is to monitor the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It is an important UN committee in Geneva—as a tribunal, it is equivalent to a court within the wider UN family—and its opinion is advisory.

I suggest to the two Ministers that they have made great play of the fact that, even though the other two UN court decisions were advisory, the Government felt compelled, for many reasons, to go along with them. We heard a lot about the rules-based system—although I do not know where that stands now after what has happened in Venezuela. We heard a lot about the global South and about our reputation in the UN. The Government have said that, for those reasons and many others, they have to go with those UN advisory judgments. Why are those judgments different from this one? If the Government are taking those advisory decisions so seriously, why do they not pause and listen to what the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has just said in what was,

frankly, an excoriating judgment? Anyone who reads it can go away concluding only that this UN committee is very concerned about the treatment of the Chagossian people.

I would certainly echo the points made by a number of noble Lords—it is excellent to see my noble friend Lord Lilley here, after his travails in getting here from France—but one thing that struck me when I first dealt with this case as the Minister for the Overseas Territories, when I started meeting different groups of Chagossian people, was the extraordinary way in which they were forgiving of the UK Government in spite of the way in which they had been treated. Surely, therefore, Amendment 32 is not asking for a great deal. They deserve a referendum.

My second point concerns something else that has changed significantly in terms of the overall climate in which we are looking at this matter: the Chagossian Government who have been set up in exile. I have had a look at them. Every single one of the Chagossian groups that has commented on this initiative has said that this is a very good idea indeed. Some of the many aspects of dealing with the Chagossian people have been the in-fighting between different factions, the number of factions in different countries and the extent to which they often do not agree on anything. However, they agree on one thing: that this Chagossian Government in exile are a good thing and should be listened to. They are taking it incredibly seriously. In that spirit, we have had two major changes in the overall situation: first, the UN committee in Geneva; and, secondly, the setting up of this Government in exile.

For those reasons, I very much hope that the Minister will agree to postpone the whole progress of this Bill. I also urge the House to vote for Amendment 32—because that would send an incredibly strong signal not just to the Chagossian people, that we feel deeply about them, but to the Government—so that we can have a proper referendum, hear and consult the Chagossians and make up for some of the wrongs of the past.