Lord Coaker

The noble Lord is one of the most esteemed Members of your Lordships’ House. There were 11 rounds of negotiation. On the fact that—to use the noble Lord’s words—they were not conc…

The noble Lord will know that I will not go into all the detail that he referred to, but the point I am making is that it is a fundamentally important security base for us, the Am…

I thank the noble Baroness for her initial comments. The point about the six people on the atoll we are talking about is that they are there illegally. You must have a permit to g…

I think that medical assistance is humanitarian assistance. I asked whether any humanitarian assistance was prevented from going to the island where those six people are, and I ha…

I previously said that I asked directly before this debate whether any humanitarian assistance—

I thank my noble friend for her question. It is in the interests of the country to try to take this forward. It is in all our interests to try to do that, because it is in the int…

Again, to show my preparation for this, I have the exchange of notes in front of me. The noble Lord is right about the 1966 exchange of notes, but to reflect the change in the tre…

As I said to my noble friend Lord Boateng, discussions with the Chagossians are really important. Numerous meetings have been held with the Chagossians and those will continue in…

My understanding, reading it again in preparing for this Statement, is that there is no right of return as it stands at the present time in the existing arrangements. What is prop…

My noble friend makes an important point. As far as I am aware, numerous Members of your Lordships’ House have met the Chagossian community and numerous ministerial visits have ta…

This is a treaty between the UK and Mauritius with respect to the future of the BIOT, without the involvement of the Maldivian Government. If that is wrong, I will write to the no…

Let me make one general point. The clash of opinion in this Chamber leads to better policy, done in the way that it is done. I respect challenge from wherever it comes, because th…