Sir Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, has refused to say whether the deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius would be funded from the Ministry of Defence’s budget. At Prime Minister’s Questions, Tory MP Kieran Mullan pressed Sir Keir to give an unequivocal answer on where the money would come from.
However, Sir Keir, who on Tuesday announced his plan to increase UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, refused to be drawn on the issue. Mr Mullan said: “The Leader of the Opposition gave the Prime Minister an opportunity to unambiguously rule out the funding of any Chagos deal coming from the defence budget, and I am not clear that he did that.”
Sir Keir replied: “As I said, when the deal is complete I will put it before the House with the costings. The money yesterday was allocated to aid our capability, the single biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War.”
Earlier, the Prime Minister had told Kemi Badenoch that the extra defence spending announced “is for our capability on defence and security in Europe” and to “put ourselves in a position to rise to a generational challenge”.
After PMQs, Downing Street failed to rule out defence funding being used as part of the Chagos deal. The Tories accused the Government of trying to “cover up” how the deal would be funded and said ministers needed to provide clarity “as soon as possible”.
The Government has repeatedly refused to be drawn on the cost of the agreement, but it is thought it could be at least £9 billion over the course of its 99-year timeframe. There had been reports that the deal could end up costing £18 billion, but the Foreign Office rejected that figure.
In October, Sir Keir announced that Britain would sign away the Chagos Islands to Mauritius despite the country having never previously controlled the territory. The islands include Diego Garcia, which is the site of a US-UK airbase, and the deal with Mauritius would see the UK lease the site back.
The Government has insisted the deal is necessary to stay on the right side of international law and to secure the long-term future of Diego Garcia.
