Letter to Richard Cooke, Head of Parliamentary
Relations Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office from the Second
Clerk of the Committee
OVERSEAS TERRITORIES: REQUEST FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION
The Committee has asked me to write to you to
request further information relevant to the Overseas Territories
inquiry.
BRITISH GOVERNMENT
APPOINTMENTS TO
THE OVERSEAS
TERRITORIES
The Committee would like a list of the official
appointments in each Overseas Territory made by the British Government
and the person or bodies responsible for making them. It would
also like details of the terms and conditions of each of these
appointments, including the length of the appointments and the
procedures for terminating them; and information about how each
of these appointments are made, including whether they are subject
to open competition and, if so, how they are advertised.
TERMS OF
"LEASE" ON
DIEGO GARCIA
Following its evidence session with the Chagos
Refugees Group on 23 January, the Committee would also like to
request more information about the UK's agreement with the US
on Diego Garcia. The Committee notes that:
"There is no lease of Diego Garcia or any
other part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) to the
United States, and they make no payment in respect of their presence
there. Under the initial agreement of December 1966 between the
UK and the US on the use of BIOT, the whole territory is to remain
available for the defence needs of the two countries for an initial
period of 50 years from 1966, and thereafter for a further period
of 20 years unless either party has given prior notice to terminate
it. A further agreement concluded in 1976, which has been supplemented
by various other agreements, regulates the establishment and functioning
of a United States Defence Facility in Diego Garcia and related
matters".[251]
The Committee would be grateful if you could
confirm that: (i) the use of Diego Garcia by the US will automatically
continue beyond 2016 unless either the UK or US gives notice that
they no longer want this arrangement to continue and (ii) that
it would be sufficient for the agreement to expire if only the
UK were to give notice that it wished to terminate it. The Committee
would also like information on the form in which this notice would
have to be given.
I would be most grateful to have your response
by Friday 29 February.
25 January 2008
251 HC Deb, 17 November 2004, col 1560W. Back
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