Speeches by Doughty.

“Absolutely, and as with any partner, we seek to keep them informed, but there is no requirement—again, this is something that has been wrongly implied at various points during this process—to do so before.”

“That is correct.”

“We are confident that that nothing in this treaty conflicts with our abilities to uphold international law, and to continue to operate the base as we do today. Mr Morello asked about relations with the United States. I draw your attention to paragraph 3 of the 1976 exchange of notes, which has all the information. It s…”

“It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Chair and members of the Committee. First and foremost, it is important to recognise how crucial Diego Garcia is to our national security and that of our allies. It is an essential military base, which has helped to keep us safe for decades, and in the volatile world that we are …”

“The position regarding Diego Garcia and the Chagos islands is, of course, unique. There is no comparison with other issues, and the suggestion that there is, particularly in the House and in the media, has been extremely unhelpful and unwelcome. You will know that the Chief Minister of Gibraltar came out very strongly …”

“No, as this is an international treaty. Once it has been ratified, it is binding on both the UK and Mauritius. We have both entered the treaty in good faith, and we are confident that the deal is fully compliant with a series of other international obligations. The treaty will be binding on us both.”

“The scrutiny process is the normal one for a treaty of this nature. It is 21 sitting days, and the treaty has obviously received a huge amount of scrutiny in both Houses. I have lost track of the hundreds of quite detailed questions I have answered, and it has also been subject to multiple urgent questions, debates and…”

“No, the treaty is going through the CRAG process now, but there will also be a Bill and secondary legislation to bring into effect a number of specific provisions that require primary and secondary legislation. There is an opportunity not only through the CRAG process but through legislative scrutiny in due course.”

“I certainly feel very well scrutinised on this treaty, and indeed on other treaties. I appeared before the Lords on the Ukraine-UK 100-year treaty, and we have a number of other treaties in the works that I am sure will also attract a lot of scrutiny. Fundamentally, it is a matter for the House and for colleagues who d…”

“Obviously, this is subject to the House business managers and our friends in the usual channels, but I suspect that it will be on the Floor of the House because of the constitutional nature of the Bill and, of course, we want it to have wide scrutiny. That is my expectation, but that has not yet been agreed with the bu…”

“It is both: the Bill and the treaty itself. The treaty’s first article sets that out and the Bill will have aspects in relation to that, too. But of course—this is a very important point—we will retain all rights and authorities to ensure the continued functioning of the Diego Garcia base, in accordance with how we ope…”

“It is all set out in the treaty and its annexes. There is also an explanatory memorandum and the details of the costs. Peter, do you want to set out more about the documents?”

“That is a crucial question. The capability provided by Diego Garcia is priceless, frankly—particularly in the world that we are in at the moment. As a Government, we are not willing to compromise on our national security, both in terms of what it costs—and there is a cost involved in our national security—or in the ris…”

“The Chagossian trust fund is an important part of recognising the importance of the island to Chagossians. We have done a number of things that are important for Chagossians in this process; indeed, the historic wrongs that were done are recognised on the face of the treaty. I would say three main things about the trea…”

“It is not right in a number of areas, Sir John. First, as I said before, there has been a lot of speculation around the costs. As you rightly pointed out, the Foreign Secretary previously said—and indeed I have—that it is not normal to provide the costings, but in this case we have decided to for the benefits of transp…”

“It will be shared between the two Departments, but I am not able to give you that at this stage. As I said, we are happy to provide to the Committee the full details of the costings, how they have been determined and how those will be done over the different years if that is helpful. I do not know if Peter had more tho…”

“I am very happy to set all that out in writing to the Committee. I will say that when you make that comparison, even if the Ministry of Defence were paying the full amount here—which it is not—it is just a fraction of 1% of the total annual defence budget. As I said, one thing here that we have to remember is that the …”

“The US pay for the operational costs, which, again, has been somewhat misunderstood.”

“I can assure you that what the US puts into this operationally—that is not for me to comment on—is, again, significant multiples of the cost of this arrangement.”

“As I said, the US pays significantly more than we do on the costs of the operations from the base. In the end, this is a facility that delivers for the national security of ourselves, the United States, Five Eyes partners and other allies. We are not willing to scrimp on that and neither is the United States.”