It’s a simple question: how much is the Chagos Islands’ handover going to cost British taxpayers? Yet for weeks now, Labour ministers have been stonewalling and squirming in their efforts to avoid giving a clear straight answer. Shortly after the deal was announced on 3 October, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told MPs that ‘the agreement will be underpinned by a financial settlement that is acceptable to both sides.’
Lammy promised on 7 October that ‘at the time of publishing the treaty, there will be a discussion of the costs’ before adding ‘but no basing agreements ever discuss costs.’ In response to a question by Caroline Dineage on ‘how much will the UK have to pay for the privilege of ceding our sovereignty?’, Lammy replied ‘these are issues that we can discuss when we have the treaty.’
Two days later on 9 October, Tory peer Lord Callanan pointed out that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had released costings on the sovereign base in Cyprus. In response, minister Baroness Chapman insisted that this was a different case as ‘we do not pay for the privilege of running the base’ there. She told the Lords that ‘the basing costs that we will pay to Mauritius are completely separate’ and ‘we do not disclose them and will will not be disclosing them.’
Fast forward a month and on 11 November, Conservative spokesman James Cartlidge used an Urgent Question on defence to ask John Healey whether he knew much the MoD was going to contribute to ‘renting back our own military base.’ The Defence Secretary retorted that ‘Of course I know the details because I was heavily involved in the negotiations’ and claimed ‘that when it debates the treaty, the House will have the full information.’
Then on 13 November in a subsequent Urgent Question on the Chagos Islands, Tory frontbencher Paul Holmes pointed out that while ministers claimed that they do ‘not release information about costs related to overseas bases’, the MoD had told Ben Obese-Jecty the previous month the ‘total cost related to an overseas base in Kenya.’ Minister Stephen Doughty insisted that ‘there is a very clear difference – that is a training area, not a major base’. To release the Chagos figure, he claimed, ‘would put the security of the base at risk.’ Subsequently, James Cartlidge intervened on a Point of Order to note that the MoD had stated the cost of running the base in Akrotiri in 2022.
On 18 November, Cartlidge quoted at Defence Oral Questions Doughty’s claim that ‘it is not normal practice for the UK to reveal the value of payments for military bases anywhere across the globe.’ Yet, as he pointed out, past ministers had done exactly that, with Penny Mordaunt revealing in November 2015 that cost of 10 overseas bases, including Diego Garcia and the cost of leases. Healey responded that ‘it is a matter of course to confirm running costs for bases’ before, adding, again, ‘we will set out the costs and the details of that treaty in due course.’
That same day, Defence minister Luke Pollard admitted that the direct cost to the MoD for running the UK element of the UK-US military base in 2023-24 was £3.8 million. Yet a fortnight later on 2 December, Pollard told Cartlidge in the Commons that ‘it would compromise our operational security and long-term relationships if we were to declare the Government-to-Government payment for overseas bases.’ So ‘operational and running costs’ of bases are fine to declare but ‘security payment’ details are not?
Finally, yesterday, on 4 December, Cartlidge asked Pollard ‘for what reason he will not publish the cost of the Chagos settlement.’ Pollard, again, insisted that payments made by ‘Government to Governments’ are not revealed. How can MPs hold Labour to account if ministers will not tell us what they will pay to rent back the base that Britain already owns?
Answers on a post card please….
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