Ministers accused of hiding cost of retaining key airbase under Chagos Islands deal

Exclusive: Government accused of holding back information on cost to the taxpayer of maintaining UK-US Diego Garcia airbase

Ministers have been accused of hiding the cost of a deal to hand the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius after questions were raised about how much the UK will pay to retain a strategically-important military base on the archipelago.

With revelations that Donald Trump is looking for a way to veto the deal struck by foreign secretary David Lammy because of concerns over the airbase on Diego Garcia island, the Labour government is facing calls to publish the costs to the taxpayer of the deal.

As part of the agreement, the UK and US believe they have secured use of the airbase for at least 99 years, but have so far refused to publish how much they will pay to be allowed to use it.

Answering an urgent question last week, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs it was not normal practice to reveal the value of payments made by the UK for military bases across the globe due to security risks.

Foreign Office minister in the Lords, Baroness Jenny Chapman also said: “We never reveal the cost of basing our military assets overseas—we never have, we never will, and I do not think other nations do either. There are very good reasons for that. If we started to do so, I expect we would see the prices of these things start to go up fairly rapidly. No, we will not be disclosing that."

Stephen Doughty answered an urgent question last week (House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA Wire)

However, previous written answers and statements showed that the government has published the costs of bases.

A year ago in November 2023, the government published the £256 million cost of its Cyprus military bases. In November 2022, the government also published the annual running costs of the same bases.

Last month the government also published the £27 million annual cost of the British army training facility in Kenya.

And in 2015, the then-defence minister Penny Mordaunt published the annual running costs of all Britain’s overseas bases.

Tory shadow ministers have now accused the governement of attempting to hold back vital details on the Mauritius deal on Chagos to avoid embarrassment as they come under pressure from president election Trump.

Tory shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said: “[Defence secretary]John Healy confirmed that he knows how much it will cost to rent back the military base on Chagos that we currently own - but he’s refusing to tell us the figure. What is he trying to hide?

Mark Francois (Gareth Fuller/PA) (PA Archive)

“We know this money could be hundreds of millions that would have to be found from the MoD budget, that should instead be focused on strengthening our armed forces. We’ve had confused reasons as to why the Government isn’t going to tell us. The fact is this is public money and the Government need to be transparent on the cost of their Chagos deal, and stop hiding the truth from Parliament.”

Pressed on the issue by The Independent, a Downing Street spokesperson said: “We will be finalising the details and the legal text as part of the deal and then coming forward with the details for scrutiny and treaty ratification in the usual way, and its at that point that we will set out the full details of it, including the costs"

Pressed further on whether Stephen Doughty was right to say that its ‘not normal practice’ to publish the financial arrangements, spox said: “As I said, we will set out the full details of the treaty which includes cost at that point so we’re following the treaty process on this.”

The issue is likely to be raised today in defence questions by the Tories.

Shadow armed forces minister, Mark Francois, said: “Just as with farming, Labour are now utterly all over the place on the costs of the Chagos Deal, too. Last Monday, FCDO Minister Stephen Doughty, told the Commons categorically the Government would not release the costs of the deal and yet on Friday the official No 10 spokesman said they would release the ‘full details, including the costs’ of the deal, when the Treaty is published.

“The government are in complete Chagos chaos over this.”