Keir Starmer slammed over Chagos Island deal (Image: Getty)
MPs have slammed Labour’s “disregard” for the environmental consequences of their Chagos Islands surrender. Minister Baroness Chapman confirmed that there has been an agreement with the Mauritian Government that they establish a new marine protected area (MPA).
The Chagos Marine Protected Area is one of the world's largest officially designated protected areas. But MPs fear that Mauritius’ depleted Navy means the area is at risk of exploitation by China.
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Tory MP David Simmonds said: "These are pristine habitats, offering a critical haven for dolphins, fish, and birds, which risk being exploited by China’s fishing industry.
“Are ministers honestly expecting Mauritius to protect the waters around Chagos with no real navy and from 2,000 miles away? This deal is bad enough anyway, but Labour’s disregard for the environmental consequences is a damning indictment of their supposed desire to hand over a better planet to future generations.”
The islands have some of the most biodiverse waters on the planet with over 220 species of coral, 855 different fish and 355 types of molluscs. The unique reefs and coral atolls, which include the Great Chagos Bank, the world’s largest coral atoll, are in exceptionally good condition.
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Andrew Griffith MP said: “Labour’s Chagos deal betrays our national security. Now, they also risk tarnishing the UK’s proud legacy on protecting our natural world.
“Successive Conservative governments knew how important it was to protect pristine natural habitats. The British public expect us to look after precious species of fish, dolphins, and birds.
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“Surrendering the Chagos islands means abandoning a huge marine protected area. Mauritius may promise to safeguard these waters, but we have no guarantee at all that they will be as strongly protected, let alone how they will be monitored with a complete lack of expertise or naval presence. The threat of exploitation by Chinese fishing interests is real, and could be avoided completely if the government would do its duty and maintain sovereignty over Chagos.”
Minister Baroness Chapman said there has been an agreement with the Mauritian Government that they establish a new MPA.
Speaking to the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee, she said: "We're hopefully towards concluding negotiations with the Government of Mauritius on the future of the Chagos archipelago. There has been an agreement that the Mauritian government will now lead on establishing a new MPA around the islands.
“That would be for them to do. We won’t be telling them exactly what that has to consist of, and they will have to lead on that but we have an agreement with them that they will do that because it’s something we've been pleased to do. And there are other reasons, obviously, than marine life, for wanting to protect the seas around that archipelago to do with security which is also a concern as part of the deal.”
Negotiations between the UK and Mauritius were started by the Conservatives in 2022 but an agreement to hand over the archipelago - known officially as the British Indian Ocean Territory - was announced by the Labour government in October.
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John Flesher, Deputy Director of the Conservative Environment Network, called the CHagos surrender a “serious threat” to the environment.
He added: “The government’s decision to hand over British sovereignty of the Chagos islands is not just a serious threat to our security, but to the environment as well. UK ministers seem to have failed to extract any meaningful guarantees that Mauritius’s commitment to a new marine protected area will be anything other than words on a page.
“The waters around Chagos are some of the most precious and biodiverse in the world, but once the islands are handed over to Mauritius, we will surrender our ability to safeguard this vital habitat for good. Protections are only as good as their enforcement, and many will rightly question whether Mauritius has the capacity or inclination to police what is currently the largest fully protected marine reserve in the world. As custodian of the fifth largest marine estate globally, the UK has real expertise in this area, which would be lost to Chagos if the deal goes ahead.
“The best solution for the marine environment, let alone for our national security, is for the government to put a stop to this deal before it’s too late.”
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Speaking in the Commons this week, Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty said: “Both sides remain committed to concluding a deal on the future of the Chagos archipelago, which protects the long-term effective operation of the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia.
“We are now working with Mauritius to finalise the agreement, and while it is in everybody’s interest to progress the deal quickly, we have never put an exact date on it and we do not intend to do so now.
“The Government will bring forward a Bill to enable implementation of the treaty and Parliament will, of course, also have the opportunity to scrutinise the treaty in the usual way before ratification.”