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In my experience, my neighbour is always a fair and credible person, so will she confirm that youth unemployment reduced over the 14 years that the Conservatives were in government, rather than focusing on some selective period over covid in order to give an entirely partisan and biased view of the statistics? The numbers went down, did they not? The only Government who put up youth unemployment by 45% were the last Labour Government.
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. How do we, as so many colleagues have asked this afternoon—certainly on the Opposition Benches—persuade an employer? How do we create the incentives for an employer to take a chance on a young person who may have no work experience—they may be full of ambition, fresh ideas and curiosity, but with little or no experience to offer—when that same employer could choose an older candidate who is proven, reliable and familiar with the workplace? If we can answer that question, we will help more than one person; we will help ensure that we provide the door to opportunity for people to have that dignity of work, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) has just talked about. I have been a Member of Parliament for nearly 21 years, along with the Minister. In that time, she, like me, will have visited hundreds of schools—I certainly have, from Holderness academy to Withernsea high school—and asked thousands of students the same question: “What do you want to be when you leave school?” Not once has a child replied, “Unemployed”, and for good reason. Young people are ambitious. They want the dignity of work, about which my right hon. Friend spoke so passionately just now, over the indignity of welfare. They want to climb a ladder of opportunity, not fall into the trap of dependency. However, as was reflected in the Minister’s speech, study after study tells us the same hard truth. Young people who experience long-term unemployment are more likely to end up poor, sick and more isolated than their peers, with no options and no hope. No way should we be consigning our young people to that fate. Labour Governments have done this before. I never want to question anyone’s honesty, but some Labour Members have been very selective in the data that they have given. They have talked relentlessly about the 14 years, but not one of them has given youth unemployment figures for those 14 years, which anyone fair-minded would surely do rather than picking some three-year period around covid. The hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) did make a fair statistical point. He said, “OK, youth unemployment has gone up under Labour.” He conceded that: how refreshing. However, he also said that it was going up when we came to power and we should deal with that. It was a fair point and a point well made, but in 1997 youth unemployment stood at 14%, and by 2010, under the socialists—the Labour party—it had climbed to 20%.
I will make a little more progress, and then I will happily give way. Given that I have referred to the hon. Gentleman, it is the very least I can do. By 2024, the level had been brought back to below 14%. Again and again, Conservatives have brought youth unemployment down. I have mentioned—as have others, including the Minister—just how damaging it is for young people to be unemployed. It has not just a short-term horrific impact, but a lifelong impact. I do not quite know why that is the case, but study after study shows that it is. Now, less than two years in, the figure is 16% and rising. We have seen this film before, and unless we change course—unless the Government change course—we know how it ends. So how do we change course? I think that Conservative Members have tried to indicate to Opposition Members what the answer might be. I know that Opposition Members lack experience of running businesses—so few of them have ever had to make that huge decision, that risk-filled decision, to employ someone and then to employ more people, having to find the money to pay them at the end of the month as well as paying all the taxes—but the answer is that we do it by changing incentives. As any good economist knows, the single biggest cost for almost any business is its workforce, yet this Chancellor has chosen to increase the minimum wage and so many other costs on business. In turn, the cost of employing 18 to 20 year-olds—just since July 2024—has risen not by £2,000, not by £3,000, but by a staggering £4,095, in less than two years. If we understand that behaviour is driven by incentives and we make it much more expensive to employ a young person than to employ someone older, what happens? Well, it is not a surprise: the rate of youth unemployment has gone up. Let me now give way to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair and reasonable point, but if he goes back and looks through the data, he will see that youth unemployment stayed stubbornly high under the last quasi-socialist Government, and it was not just because of the 2008 crash. The truth is that, throughout that period, we had a much higher level of youth unemployment than we should have done. He says that we had austerity, but the then Government overspent. We inherited a massive deficit and slowly brought it down throughout the 2010s, but we overspent in each and every year, so the idea that we had austerity is a myth. “Austerity” means living within our means, but we did not live within our means. We overspent each and every year, but by the time we got to covid, we had managed to get our deficit right down. We showed fiscal responsibility, because we know that if Governments spend money that they do not generate, they impose a burden on the very young people on whom unemployment is now being imposed. I will deal with the minimum wage, which Labour Members have touched on. They asked whether we want to tell young people that they are not worth higher pay. Well, if they do not have the experience, and if they lose out on getting a job against an older person because they do not even have cost competitiveness, they are in trouble. Since the introduction of the development rate in 1998, there has been a lower wage for younger workers. That is deliberate, for a very sensible reason: when young people enter the workplace, they are doing exactly that—they are developing. They are developing skills, confidence, discipline and the ability to work productively alongside more experienced colleagues. Employers were explicitly permitted to pay less in order to reflect an economic reality.
I do not doubt the good intentions of the Labour party, the Cabinet and the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), who I may allow to intervene in a moment, but good intentions do not disguise the truth. They have not run businesses, and it shows. They do not understand how employers make decisions or how behaviour is incentivised. By abolishing the development rate, the Chancellor wanted to signal that she is on the side of young people in order to put in place a political divide: “You Tories don’t want to pay young people a fair and decent wage!” Of course we do, but we want them to have jobs. This is the insider-outsider issue that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) touched on earlier. The effect that the Chancellor has had is the opposite of what she desired, and she is not helping young people. Many have received a short-term pay rise, but hundreds of thousands have received the ultimate kick in the teeth. They have received not a pay cut, but no pay at all, because the jobs they should have been offered have disappeared in a puff of the Chancellor’s smoke. After the Government’s first Budget, a survey by the Beverley and District chamber of trade found that 88% of its members said they would be less likely to employ young people because of the rise in the minimum wage. Despite that warning, the Chancellor returned with a second Budget and destroyed even more opportunities with another £26 billion tax raid. We can but pray that she is out the door before she completes her tax-taking trilogy. If the Chancellor changes nothing, we need to change the Chancellor. What would the Conservatives do differently? We would start with a simple truth: jobs are created by employers—by not Ministers, schemes or programmes. Private employers are the ones who generate wealth. The ladder of opportunity is not built by ministerial good intentions; it is built by creating incentives for the behaviours we want. The behaviour we want from employers is for them to take a risk, and to feel that it is worth their while for their family to invest in and give an opportunity to a young person. But under this Government, the first rung of the ladder is being sawn off. Young people do not begin at the top; they begin with a Saturday job or a summer shift, and their first payslip. That is where confidence is built, habits are formed and futures are forged. When those jobs disappear, the ladder does not get longer; it just gets shorter and steeper. A Conservative Government will abolish business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure—not 10% of them, but 100%. Those are the sectors in which so many young people take their first step. Cutting costs gives businesses the freedom to grow and hire, and we do not need a vast number of people to administer a scheme. When we simply lower the costs for employers, they get on with it. That will create real opportunities for young people to learn, earn and prove themselves. Under Labour, businesses face another three years of higher and higher costs, heavier regulation and constant uncertainty, leaving young people blocked, frustrated and struggling to get a foothold in the job market. We will repeal Labour’s job-destroying Employment Rights Act, because we cannot regulate our way to prosperity. The Act introduced 28 major reforms—count them—placing significant new requirements on businesses. By the Government’s own estimate, it will lead to £5 billion in costs. The planned changes to zero-hours contracts are perhaps the most damaging to young people, because employees will require guaranteed hours and compensation for cancelled shifts. I fully accept that these measures are well-intentioned, but they will reduce the flexibility that employers value, and that young people also value because they can balance their studies with gaining experience. Businesses will hire fewer young workers, leaving a generation without the chance to learn, earn and prove themselves.
I hope the hon. Lady will say now on the Floor of the House that if the youth unemployment rate continues to go up, as it did under previous Labour Governments, from the 14% inherited from the Conservatives to 20%—if that were to be the terrible outcome, with its scarring impact on young people—she would not seek to stand for the Labour party at the next election, because she would recognise that she had failed us.
The differential has been eroded, but the hon. Lady is quite right to mention that. What we are talking about is balance. None of us is talking about a total free-for-all for employers. We are looking at getting balance, and it looks as though that balance has gone wrong, as the hon. Lady must know. What have been the great external economic shocks over the last year and a half? There have not really been any. There is no reason, other than the policies of this Government, for this increase in youth unemployment, with the loss of nearly 100,000 jobs in hospitality. This is about getting the balance right, and this Government have not done so. The Conservatives will align incentives, cut costs and free businesses to hire—to get the balance right—and in doing so, we will give them the freedom to give young people a chance to prove themselves, because Conservative Governments stand for work, not welfare, and for opportunity, not dependency.
My hon. Friend is picking out remarkable contributions to this debate. Was she particularly struck by the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), who is not in his seat, saying that the Conservatives should apologise for not having any mention in their motion of transport to help young people get to work, when the much longer Liberal Democrat amendment, ironically, has no mention of transport either?
Does my hon. Friend look forward to the Minister’s reply, as I do? Youth unemployment has already gone up from 14% to 16%. Does she want to hear from the Minister at the Dispatch Box a commitment that this Government will reduce it back down, so that they can for once end their time in power—in 2029—however short-lived it may have been, with a lower rate of youth unemployment than they started with?
The Minister knows that youth unemployment was at 20% when the Conservatives came into power, and at 14% when we left. Can he commit that his Government, with their vast array of programmes, will bring youth unemployment back below the level that his Government inherited? Previous Labour Governments have failed to do that, and shoved up youth unemployment, with all the damage that goes with that. Will his Government ensure that the numbers come down, and if they do not, will the Government put their hands up and admit their failure?
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the responsibilities and duties of certain authorities and agencies in respect of inland flood prevention; to make provision about the powers of local flood authorities and Internal Drainage Boards; to require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the funding of local flood authorities and Internal Drainage Boards; to provide for the designation of Internal Drainage Board pumps as critical national infrastructure; to require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a report on the potential merits of establishing a Flood Compensation Fund to support homeowners whose primary residence has become unsaleable as a direct result of flooding; to make provision about flood reinsurance schemes; to make provision about the responsibilities of developers and water companies in respect of the provision of drainage for new housing developments; to make water companies statutory consultees for certain planning applications; to place a duty on fire and rescue services to respond to flood events; to make provision about national and local digital mapping of flood incidence and risk; and for connected purposes. Mr Speaker, when you hear “Norfolk” and “floods”, I imagine that, like most, you think of coastal flooding, salt marsh flooding, storm tides eroding our cliffs, river flooding and the broads, but not inland flooding from surface water run-off overloading drains and sewers, which is all too often overlooked, and which is why I am introducing this Bill. Like many, Mr Speaker, you are probably wondering why Mid Norfolk is flooding. It is Breckland; it is dry, sandy, and inland—the clue is in the name—and it should not be flooding, but over the last decade or so we have seen a spate of inland surface flooding in 23 of my 130 villages, and the problem is increasing every year. Why? Yes, climate change. In 2022-23, we had the wettest October, November, December, January, February and March on record, but there is also a lack of maintenance of council highway culverts, a lack of maintenance of farm ditches, inadequate funding of internal drainage boards—who, by the way, have been doing a really good job since about 1560, when they were created—and local flood authorities, and the relinquishing of riparian rights. I am sorry to say that I think the Environment Agency is rather more focused on rivers as habitats, than as channels for getting water off the land. However, these issues are happening in many areas. Why is there a problem in Mid Norfolk? The big factor in Mid Norfolk is new housing. Along the A11 corridor, in the last 10 or 15 years, we have seen 5,000 houses built at Thetford, 5,000 at Attleborough, 3,000 at Wymondham, and 1,000 at Silfield. A 5,000-house new town is planned at Snetterton, and in commuter villages like Yaxham, Mattishall and Ellingham, big national developers and their agents like Gladman are using—or abusing—the five-year land supply to land-bank, and then to dump massive commuter housing estates on the outskirts of towns and villages without making proper infrastructure investment, against the wishes of the local council, the local plan and communities, who are too often powerless. I want to make it clear that I am not against house building, or all developers. We have excellent local developers in Norfolk, like Abel Homes, which builds excellent homes and estates in many of my towns and villages. They are not the problem. The problem is the rush to dump massive commuter estates on the outskirts of towns and villages, and the scale of new housing without adequate infrastructure investment. In 2020, my eyes were fully opened to the scale of the issue. I spent Christmas week helping residents in my villages to clear out sewage water from their houses, and on the telephone lines to try to get Anglian Water to send tankers to pump out the villages. The problems continued, and in 2023, Mill Lane, Attleborough, was hit by a significant flooding event affecting 100 homes. Spare a thought, please, for Lynn and Hans Short, who live next to the culvert, which was, by the way, wrongly installed by Anglian Water before it handed over the riparian responsibilities. Lynn and Hans have been flooded in four out of the last five years. That is why I have set up the Mid Norfolk Flood Partnership, worked with the county council to set up the Norfolk Strategic Flood Alliance, ably led by Henry Cator and Fiona Johnston, convened our first Norfolk flood summit last year, and established and supported local flood action groups. My first instinct was not to come to Parliament or Government for help, but to lead locally. Something has become very clear, not least through the case study of Mill Lane, Attleborough, where a culvert was built under the river, inappropriately blocked with a grille that was never properly checked, and is at the wrong angle, so that it piles up waste, flooding the houses next to it. We ended up having to put together a multi-agency taskforce. We removed 30 tonnes of debris from the whole river. There was an illegal housing development lower down the watercourse, inappropriate development, and a lack of catchment work all the way through. It was a huge multi-agency project, but this is happening all over the country. Norfolk is only sixth in the top 10 inland flood counties, and that is why there are, I think, four new flooding all-party parliamentary groups in this Parliament. MPs across the House recognise the issue, and given the new house building target of 1.5 million homes in the next three years, it will only get more serious. I pay tribute to the new flood Minister, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), who is present, and Peter Bonfield for his flood review. I welcome the comprehensive spending review funding announcement of £2.6 billion for flood and coastal erosion management to protect 65,000 homes. The insurance sector tells us that 18 million homes will be at risk—one in four—over the next 10 to 15 years, and flooding is costing £66 billion a year to the economy.[Official Report, 29 January 2026; Vol. 779, c. 10WC.] (Correction) We will not solve the problem unless we really deal with the fundamental, structural, systemic problems causing misery and chaos around the country. Inland flooding is often overlooked, as funding goes to the higher-profile coastal areas, rivers, towns and cities. There is a serious lack of clear responsibility; there are over 30 agencies in Norfolk alone that have responsibility for flooding. We must deal with the disempowering of local bodies, such as internal drainage boards. Local flood authorities have no power or funding. There is continued building on floodplains without adequate infrastructure. There is no enforceable requirement to upgrade existing drainage, and no funding for drainage upgrades because most section 106 money goes on important local services. Residents in district council areas where there is an IDB are seeing funding for flood services cut. There is tonnes of data, but no proper mapping of where and when floods are likely to happen. We have the technology and the data to do that mapping, but we do not use it. The vital Flood Re scheme is limited in time and scope, and is set to expire. There is also an insurance, mortgage and saleability time-bomb in our housing market. Sadly, there was nothing to deal with those issues in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, despite multiple amendments being tabled, including in the other place. The Bill that I am introducing has been designed with and around the advice of frontline bodies, and deals with the practical reality of flood prevention in four key areas: responsibilities, funding, planning, and national and local data and flood mapping. I developed it in a spirit of non-partisan, practical politics, to embolden the Minister to take this opportunity to make the key reforms that are essential if we are to avoid a growing crisis worsening to calamitous levels. I thank the many agencies and organisations in the water sector that have helped—in particular, local residents Liz Witcher in Watton, Hans and Lynn in Attleborough, and others too numerous to mention. I thank my councillors, agencies such as the Norfolk Strategic Flooding Alliance, and Aviva, a great local Norfolk insurance business on the frontline of this crisis. Most of all, the Bill is shaped by and for those poor people, up and down this country, who, like Hans and Lynn Short at Mill Lane, Attleborough, live in fear of going through the hell of their homes being flooded, not through any fault of their own, but because the system has failed them. The planning, drainage, sewerage, insurance and flood-prevention system has evolved without design. No single body or person is responsible; that is the problem. The system is not fit for purpose today, let alone for three years’ time, when 1.5 million new homes are set to be built. We were all sent here to make the system work for the people who pay their taxes, pay our wages and expect us to deliver. We owe it to them and to the next generation to fix this. That is how we repair public trust in our politics and in this Parliament. The Bill is designed to help the Minister do just that. I commend it to the House. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That George Freeman, Nick Timothy, Jerome Mayhew, James Wild, Lee Pitcher, Helen Morgan, Dr Roz Savage, Steff Aquarone, Adrian Ramsay, Blake Stephenson and Dr Ben Spencer present the Bill. George Freeman accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 10 July, and to be printed (Bill 368).
I remind Members to bob if they wish to be called. We will go to the Front-Bench speakers at about 3.30 pm. I am aware we are expecting a vote, which might come as early as 3.30 pm; I will obviously suspend the sitting when that happens.
I will call Amanda Hack to move the motion and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of both the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention with a 30-minute debate.
Order. I remind Members to bob if they wish to be called in the debate.
Negotiations may well be ongoing, but the key question is whether the UK can make a unilateral decision to give away sovereignty without the blessing of the US. This question was posed three times on Monday, and the Minister simply said it is under discussion. Ministers need to answer directly today, so I pose this question now: can this be done unilaterally or not?
Specifically on that point, the 2021 judgment did not have any British representation and rested on the UN’s non-binding judgment. We also know from the 2015 ruling that that court cannot preside over sovereignty, so how does it stand up to scrutiny that the Minister is saying that there is a dire need to hand the islands over?
I have actually enjoyed seeing what the Foreign Office has been doing over the past few weeks. I was trying to determine why I have been getting so much more enjoyment out of it, and I think it is because it has been taking advice from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. Every time we have a Foreign Office question, the Black Knight comes in front of us. They are honourable, brave and doughty; they will not answer a question; they are torn limb from limb, and their arguments are struck down one by one; but they still want to have the fight.
It is indeed. I applaud the Government and their Ministers for doing that. We hear time and again from Government Members that we have had ample time to debate these issues. I entirely agree, but that is exactly the problem. These debates have been going on for so long because we are not getting the answers that we need to do our job and scrutinise this deal. Anyone making a good argument should be able to justify their point and evidence it. I will summarise some of the key questions that I want answered, and will say why we seem stuck. I will then explain why that matters, and, finally, will give the context of this debate. First, we ask about the legal position. The Government say that there is legal jeopardy, but the Conservatives contend that what the International Court of Justice says is non-binding, that there is no court that could pass judgment, and that there is a Commonwealth opt-out. The Government say that the cost is £3.4 billion; the Government Actuary says that the figure is £34 billion, and the Conservatives contend that the Government are using the wrong tool to make a judgment on cost, because net present value does not count. When it comes to the environment, the Government say that safeguards are in place, but the Conservatives contend that Mauritius does not have a navy that would enable it to hold up its side of the bargain and prevent damage to fishing. Turning to the nuclear aspect, we Conservatives recognise that the Pelindaba treaty creates a conflict, and the Government have not explained why it does not. As for the US’s involvement and whether it has a veto, we believe that the 1966 agreement would need to be taken into account. Finally, although it has not been mentioned today or over the past few weeks, there is the long-term security of this base. At the end of 99 years, there is only an option for us to buy and continue, so what happens at that point? We have not secured the long-term security of the base at all.
Fundamentally, the US should express its concerns publicly, and it has now done so. We have asked Ministers, both in this debate and on Monday, whether the UK Government can make a unilateral decision without amending the notes. The Government have said that they have to amend the notes, but they have not set out what happens if the US does not agree. That is the key part of this, but the Government keep reading out the same answer that I got on Monday when I asked that question, the same answer that I got when I intervened on the Minister, and the same answer that my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) got. They say that they have set out the process, which is primary legislation, secondary legislation, and then amendments to the notes. The question is: what happens if the Americans do not agree to that amendment of the 1966 notes? I will take an intervention if the Minister can tell us, because the fundamental point about US involvement is this: if they say no, but we say yes, where do the islands go? What happens to the agreement? What happens if they say yes and we say no? Those fundamental questions are why we keep coming back to this issue. If there was clarity and simple answers to simple questions, the Opposition would understand that and be able to make a balanced judgement. Instead, we have gaps in our understanding from the Government.
My right hon. Friend is entirely right in pinpointing some of the issues, and I will reverse my speech and deal with some of those first. On the 1996 Pelindaba treaty, formally ratified in 2009, although the whole treaty is about where countries can research and what they can do with nuclear weapons, the key part, article 4, is about the prevention of parking of nuclear explosives. Paragraph 1 states: “Each Party undertakes to prohibit…the stationing of any nuclear explosive device” on its territory. By definition, if the base goes across to Mauritius, it will be under the treaty, because Mauritius is a signatory. There is a slight misconstruing, because there is a specific carve-out. Paragraph 2 states: “Without prejudice to the purposes and objectives of the treaty, each party in the exercise of its sovereign rights remains free to decide for itself whether to allow visits by foreign ships and aircraft to its ports and airfields”, and it goes on. What the treaty implies, and what it states specifically, is that Mauritius would have to be consulted and provide explicit permission for nuclear craft, whether submarine, boat or aircraft, to be there. Only yesterday we heard that that permission would not be granted. This question on the security of the nuclear aspect is unanswered, and I look forward to the Government trying to rectify that position, because they have not explained the interaction with the treaty. This is not operational; it is purely about legal text.
Absolutely. On a technicality, the Minister is right to say that the treaty in front of us has no problems, but at the end of the day it is about the interaction with other treaties once we have signed it and sovereignty has been given away. My hon. Friend is right that things would not be covered once Diego Garcia no longer belonged to us, and the Government are struggling to explain that difficulty.
My right hon. Friend is right. From memory, I think he is referring to article 3 of the 1996 treaty, which explicitly talks about researching and so on. The Government need to set out the implications and how that treaty interacts with this treaty that they are signing or want us to ratify. Let us step back a bit further. We are in this position, the Government argue, because of a non-binding ICJ judgment. I will ask the Minister again: with which court does he believe there would be a problem? The Government have said time and again that we could be brought into conflict with several courts. The Defence Secretary was worried about the United Nations convention on the law of the sea and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, but we already know from a 2015 ruling against the UK over Mauritius that they cannot judge sovereignty, so that one is out the window. Earlier, I asked the Minister, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) about this issue, and she mentioned the 2021 special chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. As she will know, the UK was not party to give information to that, and it rested on the non-binding judgment of the ICJ, which is already contested. There is an opt-out, because it is a Commonwealth interaction. Months on, the Government still cannot answer these simple questions. Another body that is often referred to—we will go over this again—is the International Telecommunication Union. We know from the Government’s own written answers that article 48 of the ITU constitution states that it cannot judge sovereignty. The Government know that, and I do not understand why they will not just stand here and say that. On finances, the figures and what they are made up of is contested. The Government are right on their figure, and the Opposition are right on our figure, but how can that be? It is because of the mechanism being used to judge that value. The Opposition contest that the best way to work out the figure is the nominal value used by the Government actuaries. The deal is over 100 years, and we have to take into account what things will look like and other factors. The Government actuaries say that the cost is £34 billion, yet the Government are using net present value, which gives us £3.4 billion. I am glad that the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry is here, because I posed this question to him in the last debate, and his answer was that the figure is in the Green Book. I retorted: “Can the Minister point to any other country in the world that has used NPV to give away sovereignty?”—[Official Report, 9 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 748.]
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend, who has experience of running a Department. I find it all the more frustrating that Ministers cannot simply set out the difference between the two values when I as a Back Bencher can spot it and explain it. The question is which is the better tool and why. Net present value has domestic use, and that is why the Office for National Statistics will not come out and say that there is a problem with it. It is a legitimate tool to use, but it is being used inappropriately when we are dealing with sovereignty. The assumptions that the Government are building their figure on are 3.5% for the first 30 years, but this is a 99-year lease. We do not even know what will happens with the other 70 years. If we compare with other countries, we see that the US uses a 7% social discount rate. We are posing simple questions, doing our job on the Opposition Benches, trying to get answers from Ministers as to why we would use this net present value. When we take everything into account, if we use simply an inflation-adjusted amount, it is £10 billion. There are three figures out there that are all correct, but all stand to be used in a different way. The fact that a Minister repeatedly cannot answer those questions is of due concern to Opposition Members. I will turn to the size of the environmental aspect. It has been pointed out multiple times that Mauritius does not have a navy or a force to protect the blue planet programme that is in place. Why am I concerned about that? We know that the 2015 UNCLOS tribunal was all about the fact that the UK wanted to put more protections in, but the Mauritians wanted fishing rights in the area—we already have history there—yet we would not have the Navy to enforce protections. It is a simple question for the Government to answer: how will they resolve that problem?
Quite possibly. We already know that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has its blue planet programme to help to protect environmental areas that were, or are, under British control. Does this come under the FCDO budget as well? We still do not know the answers to these questions—very simple questions, which we have been asking for the past year. On the matter of the Chagossians, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) raised a very simple principle. Again, I am confused by what the Government are saying. The Prime Minister himself has said that Greenlanders will decide for Greenland, yet Chagossians cannot decide for Chagos. I understand that there could be an argument one way or the other, but the Government apparently will not make it. They do not seem to see the illogical nature of what they are putting forward when they make a statement referring to sovereignty in one area, but make no statement that would apply to the case that we are discussing today.
Absolutely. That is another perfectly sensible question to pose to the Government, and for them to answer and to set out the reasons and the rationale. I am still concerned, when we are dealing with the detail, about the long-term nature of the deal and whether it is bomb-proof. When we come to the end of 99 years, what will happen? The only protection we have is that we have first say on taking it on. We have already heard, from Members on both sides of the House, how much China’s economy will grow. Will we even have the finances to buy that deal? Will we be outbid by the United States, by China, or by some other BRIC power? We are held over a barrel by the Mauritians, or, worse still, the Mauritians can simply say, “We don’t want it any more”, and the base is gone and we can do nothing about it. Why does all this matter? Those are all technical questions that I want the Government to answer, but overall we must see the wider context, which has been explained here numerous times before. The United States is changing its foreign policy, China is changing its foreign policy, yet the UK does not appear to have an approach in either direction. It appears that we are looking towards a sphere of influence, with America having one side and China and Russia having another. So the question for the House is, “Why rush this through?” Why not think about it? Why not answer these simple questions, to get this side of the House on board, so that we could then say, “We think this is the right thing for the country? The saddest aspect of this whole debate is the way in which the Government have turned it into a scapegoating of the Opposition as if we were playing political games, rather than seeing that the simple technical questions that need to be answered are the key to unlocking our understanding. If we as parliamentarians cannot get answers to these questions and do not understand the rationale, how can we explain it to our constituents, how can we explain it to the nation, and how can we explain it to the world? If the Government want us to stop—supposedly—playing politics, I ask them to give simple answers to simple questions, back them up and give evidence for them. Otherwise, we are left fighting the Black Knight, who is brave, who is forthright, who is keen to stand in the way of any progress, but who simply will not answer a question and is cut down, limb by limb, in a pool of blood.
I am surprised that a party that represents trade unionists does not understand that when there is a dispute between one party and another, it is a good thing to try to talk about it. [Interruption.] Why did we start negotiations? Because there is a dispute, and we need to talk to other people to understand what is going on. That is exactly what any responsible country should do. There is a difference between signing off a treaty and entering into talks with someone. Trade unionists should know that.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister specifically directed some comments at me, opening up an opportunity for me to speak. How can I respond to those comments when I cannot intervene?
Does the hon. Member share my concern about the graduate market? We are talking about youth unemployment, but we know from the Office for National Statistics that 257,000 Brits have emigrated, of whom 70% were under the age of 35. We are losing a lot of talent, but that is not being picked up in the figures for youth unemployment, so it is likely that youth unemployment is actually significantly worse, and that is because of the Government’s changes.
The mistake the hon. Member makes is in buying into China’s narrative that there is a grey zone in the South China sea. There is no grey zone. China should not be there, but it could not care less. It goes there anyway. The idea that some agreement we make with Mauritius is going to stop China acting at a later date is complete nonsense, as China proves in the South China sea every day.
I welcome the opportunity to make clear my opposition to any proposal to give away this strategically important sovereign British territory. This is not merely a territorial concession; it is an act of strategic self-sabotage, a dereliction of duty and an unforgivable betrayal of our national security. At a time of growing global instability, when our adversaries are watching for any sign of weakness, Labour has chosen to send precisely the wrong signal: that Britain can be pressured into abandoning its own territory. This decision is indefensible on every level. The Chagos islands, and specifically Diego Garcia, have been a vital strategic asset for the UK and our allies for decades. The military base on Diego Garcia has played a crucial role in global security operations, supporting counter-terrorism efforts, maritime security and regional stability. It has been instrumental in projecting western power in the Indo-Pacific, a region increasingly shaped by geopolitical competition, particularly with China. By ceding sovereignty over these islands, Labour has put at risk Britain’s strategic interests and undermined our ability to operate in the region. What makes this decision even more staggering is that we are not just surrendering our sovereignty: we are paying Mauritius billions of pounds for the privilege. My central concern is the serious strategic challenge we face in respect of China. China has a population of 1.4 billion people and by 2030 its GDP is projected to be $26 trillion, second only to the US, and there are projections that it will potentially outstrip the US by 2050. China’s increase in military spending this year alone is expected to be 7.2%, which is the third consecutive year in which its increase in military spending has been over 7%. China has become the world’s largest shipbuilding nation, and its navy is expected to comprise 430 military grade ships by 2030, compared with the US navy’s estimated decline to 294 ships. China is a growing military power and there are no indications that it is anywhere near a supposed peak. Domestically and internationally, China conducts itself as an autocratic state. It has the most sophisticated domestic surveillance system in the world, Skynet, which as of 2023 has 700 million cameras—that is one lens for every two Chinese citizens. We must not be so naive as to assume that if we end up in even greater strategic competition with China it will care at all about what agreement we have reached with Mauritius. We saw with Hong Kong how easily agreements made with third countries can be ignored, as China did there. If Mauritius seeks to align itself strategically with China, do we think China will hesitate and ask it not to break the treaty because of international law? China will not respect any Bill or pay any attention to diplomatic consequences for Mauritius if it thinks it is in its interest to get Mauritius to break that agreement. That is the difference between any form of agreement and sovereignty, because once sovereignty has been given away, it can never be bought back.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is extraordinary that Labour Members are prepared to defend the deal, while admitting that they do not even know if our accusations are correct. They could say that they do not agree with what we are proposing, but to admit that they do not know whether nuclear weapons will be allowed on the island and that they are happy to support the deal anyway is disgraceful. We must address the wider consequences of this decision. If Labour is willing to abandon the Chagos islands so easily, what message does that send to our other overseas territories? The International Court of Justice may have issued an advisory opinion in 2019—[Interruption.] What I say is true; the world is watching. We have had pressure put on us in relation to a sovereign territory and we have collapsed, but Labour Members want us to think that the rest of the world will not interpret our standing from that.
The people who we should be worried about are not the people in charge of the British overseas territories—we should be worried about the people who are watching what we do and making decisions about how they will act, as we saw with previous attempts to take control of those territories. Does the hon. Gentleman think that Argentina will observe this situation and not draw a lesson from it? Of course it will.
That is a fact. My right hon. Friend will know that other UN bodies have supported Argentina for decades, and are pressuring us to continue negotiations around that issue. The Government rely on what the UN says, but the UN’s position on the Falklands is completely contrary to the interests of this country.
My right hon. Friend highlights the lessons that the rest of the world will be drawing from this decision. A submissive approach to third party calls on these issues displays an incredible naiveté about the world we live in and the direction we are travelling. Our previous positive disposition towards the role that these institutions could play was in a different era, when we expected a converging uniformity of basic values and democracy. That convergence is not happening; instead, our enemies are using our desire to stick to it as a weakness to exploit. They do not even recognise basic legal norms and institutions in their own countries; their own citizens do not benefit from legal protections and rights, and they do not believe in the rule of law full stop. Do the Government really think that our enemies will put international legal obligations ahead of pursuing their own strategic interests? Of course not, yet we are expected to undertake a strategic surrender in the name of the rule of law in a way that advantages them, and on what basis—that they might look at what we have done and change their ways in the future, as they failed to do in Hong Kong? That is incredible naiveté.
It is not just the WTO; the Chinese are supposed to follow the jurisdiction of international maritime courts, for example. The Government point to that as a reason why we should comply with them, but the Chinese break those rulings all the time, as we discussed in relation to the South China sea. They could not care less; they are restrained only by their strict self-interest. They pretend and play up the idea that they might follow the rules—when it does not suit, they do not follow them—yet we are supposed to follow the rules, because the aim is to get the Chinese on side. That is never going to happen. Let us look at the membership of the ICJ and the people who made the ruling. The vice-president was Xue Hanqin, who ruled that the UK should give the islands over to Mauritius. She is a former Chinese Communist party official who served as the director-general of the department of treaty and law in China’s foreign ministry—the same ministry that is overseeing the violation of the agreement in Hong Kong. It makes absolutely no sense to see it as a neutral arbiter. In 2022, she was one of two judges who voted against an ICJ ruling that Russia should suspend its invasion of Ukraine. Would our country slavishly adhering to those rulings, against our own national interest, bring onside wavering countries that are making their own strategic calculations about who they want to support when it comes to challenges such as Ukraine and, if it happens, Taiwan? Of course it will not. The historical argument for that approach has been to suggest that we will bring other countries over to our way of doing things—the rules-based order—but I am afraid that that is not happening. Countries across the world are actually looking at which bloc and which sphere of influence would be best at defending their interests if they seek to align with it. This surrender deal will make it very clear that they should think twice about supporting the western democracies and instead point their finger towards the autocratic states that will benefit so enormously from the deal. Surrendering the Chagos islands will simply strengthen those countries that want a more disorderly world. We should seek to use the rules-based order—we should not abandon that long-term goal, and we should continue to make it clear that that is our preference for how we run the world—but not with our eyes and ears closed to what is actually happening, and not at huge cost to our own interests. This is not diplomacy or pragmatism; it is weakness, and weakness has consequences. Britain is not just losing a territory; we are losing credibility. Our allies are watching as Labour surrenders key strategic ground without so much as a fight. Our adversaries are taking note and seeing a Government who lack the resolve to defend their own interests. This deal is a sell-out and a catastrophic misjudgment, and it must not go ahead. I urge every Member of this House to stand firm for Britain’s interests, our national security and our place in the world. We must reject this reckless agreement and demand that our Government defend British sovereign territory, rather than bargaining it away behind closed doors.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that at every single point from 2010 onwards, all the Labour party has ever done is encourage us to spend more?
Even if we accept the Government’s position that Mauritius does not get on particularly well with China, are we really leaving in the hands of fate the question of whether the Mauritians might change their minds 50 years from now and seek to line up with China’s sphere of influence? It is a huge gamble to take.
In the Minister’s speech, she seemed to be lauding jobs created by the Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is ridiculous to suggest that the Government should create jobs instead of business?
Will my hon. Friend comment on the proportion of benefits claimants who are under the age of 24? In Sleaford and North Hykeham, 25% of people on unemployment benefit are under the age of 24, which is clearly a very large amount.
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I am sorry to interrupt it. I want to ask her about the people who are writing hundreds and hundreds of applications for graduate schemes, and who are finding that they are locked out of those schemes, having been deprioritised because of the colour of their skin. Why should the Deputy Prime Minister’s son or the children of the Leader of the Opposition be prioritised for jobs over a tractor driver from Lincolnshire?