A minister has said the US will be paying “many multiples more” to operate the Diego Garcia military base than the UK will pay to lease it under the Chagos deal, as Kemi Badenoch said the agreement would leave Donald Trump “laughing”.
Armed forces minister Luke Pollard defended the deal as “good value” but the Tory leader said the US president has got a “great deal at the expense of the UK”.
In a treaty to “complete the process of decolonisation of Mauritius”, the Government has agreed to pay at least £120 million-a-year for 99 years for control of the vital Diego Garcia base, plus hand over £1.125 billion for economic development over a 25-year period.
The Government has faced questions about their estimation of the full cost.
Officials said the deal amounted to an average of £101 million a year in 2025/26 prices with an overall cost of £3.4 billion a year “using a net present value methodology”.
The Tories have said the true cost of the deal could rise to more than £30 billion if inflation is at the 2% target.
Mr Pollard stood firm on the figures and said the cost was “comparable” to bases other allies lease in the region.
“So it’s £3.4 billion over 99 years – that represents good value,” he told Sky News.
The French pay 85 million euros a year to rent a base in Djibouti that is “literally next door to the Chinese naval base that’s leased there”, he said.
He argued that Diego Garcia is “15 times bigger than that French base” and the UK had secured an “exclusion zone” around the base to protect UK and US operations.
The Trump administration in Washington supported the deal, which guarantees the future of the base which is used extensively by the US armed forces.
Asked why the US is not contributing to the cost of leasing back the base, he said the partner country pays much more in operational costs.
“What we are bringing to the deal is the real estate, the UK will be leasing the base and the Americans pay for the operating costs of the base – now that is many multiples more than the leasing cost,” he told Times Radio.
Tory leader Mrs Badenoch said the US was benefiting at the UK’s expense.
“Donald Trump is laughing at that Chagos deal,” the Conservative Party leader told BBC Breakfast.
“He’s welcoming it because he’s not going to have to pay very much, if anything at all.
“He’s got a great deal at the expense of the UK. That’s not right. It hasn’t been done in our national interest.
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“What I want to see is more nurses being paid well but we can’t do that because we’re taking a lot of terrible decisions under Keir Starmer that are weakening our country.”
The total cash cost over the 99-year term of the deal will be at least £13 billion for the use of the base and the 25-year agreement to hand over money to support projects to promote the “economic development and welfare of Mauritius”.
The International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion in 2019, said the Chagos Archipelago should be handed over.
Ministers argued that the deal needed to be done because the UK would have faced legal challenges “within weeks” which could have jeopardised the operation of the Indian Ocean base which is used by US and British forces.
The UK will retain full operational control of Diego Garcia, including the electromagnetic spectrum satellite used for communications which counters hostile interference.
A 24-nautical mile buffer zone will be put in place around the island where nothing can be built or placed without UK consent.