Speeches by Doughty.

“No.”

“No. For those not familiar with the original arrangement with the United States, an exchange of notes established the relationship. That was part of the original arrangement with the United States, which we are also required to uphold.”

“It is not £250 million; it is £165 million in year 1.”

“That is separate.”

“The FCDO budget is being set in relation to the settlement that we have just received under the spending review. We have not yet gone into the detailed allocations, but I am clear that this has been factored into our budgeting and long-term planning. As I said, this is very important: we can pick out any one individual…”

“I am not going to go speculating on what people might think about the Mauritian Government or their parliamentary procedures. This is the deal that has been agreed with them. We have agreed a schedule and a long-term set of payments. There are different aspects to this. There is certainly no intent for us to be involve…”

“I am not going to give a detailed commentary on every part of the negotiations. We were not prepared to do that during them, but, as I said, we have worked with the previous Mauritian Government and the current Mauritian Government, and we will continue to work with Mauritian Governments in the future. This is an inter…”

“A lot of this is set out in annex 3 to the agreement. It sets out which articles it is in accordance with and explains that we are going to each appoint members of the joint commission—one senior representative as co-chair and four additional representatives. There might be alternates. It goes into quite a significant …”

“I think it has to be agreed by both parties and that both would need to be satisfied that it was working, looking at other joint commissions and other bodies around the world. As I said, the terms of reference and the membership are subject to the ongoing discussions with Mauritius. Crucially, as I said, there are some…”

“Decisions have to be by joint agreement. There is a mutually connected umbilical cord between us on the decision-making processes, which is very important, particularly for decisions in relation to some of the more sensitive matters around the island.”

“Of course, we are worried about threats in the Indo-Pacific, but that is why we have had to do this deal to secure the long-term future and operation of the base. Fundamentally, if we did not do this deal and secure the operational future, others might have come along and tested through legal processes or sought to tak…”

“I would look again at what the US and the defence secretary in the United States said about this and the support for the deal. Ultimately, Mauritius’s closest partner, aside from us, in relation to this treaty is India. You will know that Indian-Chinese relations are complex. We are absolutely clear that there are prov…”

“The reality, though—this goes back to what I said to the Chair at the beginning—is of course that the ability to frustrate the operations of the base, which is the fundamental issue that is at stake here, is absolutely essential. Had we seen interim measures and eventually a binding judgment that started to affect the …”

“They are. I will not go into the operational detail of what is there, but I certainly do not think that we want to enter into any confrontational or challenging implications around there. We are very capable of defending our interests on Diego Garcia. For Committee members who are not familiar with the Chagos archipela…”

“We are content that the general obligations in there—we all have different obligations, on different levels, to international law, as does Mauritius—enable us to continue to operate the base in exactly the way that we do today. As you rightly pointed out, Sir John, Diego Garcia was not used in the operations at the wee…”

“There are always arguments and speculation, but I am very clear. By the way, this of course applies to all our overseas bases: we are a Government committed to international law and all our bases are operated in accordance with it.”

“I am very happy to do that.”

“Happily—and we will happily keep you informed as we go through this process.”

“Those are very good questions, Chair, and we will take them away.”

“I hope that, as we go through the detailed implementation discussions with the Mauritian authorities, we can come back to you with some further detail that will help to reassure you and the Environmental Audit Committee as well.”