It’s a simple question: how much is the Chagos Islands’ handover going to cost British taxpayers? Yet for weeks now, Labour ministers have been stonewalling and squirming in their efforts to avoid giving a clear straight answer. Shortly after the deal was announced on 3 October, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told MPs that ‘the agreement will be underpinned by a financial settlement that is acceptable to both sides.’
Lammy promised on 7 October that ‘at the time of publishing the treaty, there will be a discussion of the costs’ before adding ‘but no basing agreements ever discuss costs.’ In response to a question by Caroline Dineage on ‘how much will the UK have to pay for the privilege of ceding our sovereignty?’, Lammy replied ‘these are issues that we can discuss when we have the treaty.’
Two days later on 9 October, Tory peer Lord Callanan pointed out that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had released costings on the sovereign base in Cyprus.
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