Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
MR. LOUIS
OLIVIER BANCOULT
AND MR.
RICHARD GIFFORD
23 JANUARY 2008
Q140 Mr. Keetch: Finally, could you
answer Sir Menzies's other question about the civil rights of
people in Mauritius? He asked if they had the vote, access to
health care and so on.
Mr. Gifford: Yes, they are Mauritian
citizens and dual nationals. The British Government specifically
enacted when they detached Chagos that these chaps should become
Mauritian at independence. They kept rather quieter about the
fact that they also retained their British subject status. They
have full civil rights. I would point out that they occupy the
lowest rung in a very hierarchical society and suffer various
forms of discrimination, but that is not official or governmental.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—
Q141 Chairman: Can I ask all members
of the public to switch off your mobile phones, please, if you
are coming in? I do not want any interruptions. Thank you.
Gentlemen, thank you for staying and waiting
for us to come back. Can I ask you about the issue of a sustainable
return? As you are aware, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
produced a feasibility study in 2002 and there is some controversy
about the conclusions of that document, as to whether it was modified
in the process, between 2000 and 2002. It has been alleged that
the conclusions were interfered with, and one of the submissions
that we have had says that. If that is the case, why do you think
that the document was interfered with?
Mr. Gifford: One would be rather
naive if one was not aware of the tendency for official, supposedly
scientific, Government-sponsored reports, which are supposed to
be totally objective, to have an element of wishing to please
those commissioning the reports, and indeed sometimes they are
rather too generous with the ability to tailor the conclusions
to fit the master's purposes.
However, in this particular case, we have direct
evidence of the actual redrafting process. It came in very late,
because we asked for drafts of the two studies—the preliminary
one in 2000 and the so-called "phase 2B" that came in
the middle of 2002—because we were not very happy that the
negative bits were being trumpeted by the Government all over
the place and nobody ever mentioned the positive bits, at least
not in administration circles.
So we were told that, yes, you can have the
draft of the preliminary study, but no, you cannot have the draft
of the phase 2B study. Now, that was enough, because the draft
of the preliminary study showed very clearly that an unqualified
conclusion that there was no problem with up to 1,000 islanders
resettling immediately had been amended by a handwritten note,
following a meeting with the administration, to make it a qualified
conclusion. It actually said, in quotes, "qualify" and
"if"—
Q142 Chairman: You said "the
administration." Just for the record, who do you mean by
"the administration"?
Mr. Gifford: The British Indian
Ocean Territory administration office.
Lo and behold, the published version, which
we already had, showed that settlement is physically possible,
but only if a number of qualifications were met, and there were
half a dozen qualifications, which in practice did not amount
to very much, but they made the conclusion look much more qualified.
That was the preliminary study. When it came
to the phase 2B study, the only bit that you ever see quoted by
Ministers or officials is the so-called "general conclusion."
It is about three or four lines and it amounts to a supposed conclusion
that resettlement is precarious and costly. Now, it sticks out
like a sore thumb, because it does not follow from what goes before,
nor from the body of the research, and nor does it fit in with
what follows. What follows is that, in order to proceed with this
study, we have to do all sorts of things: we have to consult the
islanders, as any resettlement plan must do; we have to look at
the costs of resettlement, which they were prohibited from doing
by their terms of reference; and we must look at the benefits
of resettlement. You would think that those elements were pretty
fundamental—costs, benefits and consultation—but they
were excluded from considering any of them by their supposed terms
of reference. Instead, you got this conclusion that sticks out
like a sore thumb and says that it is too costly and too precarious
to send the islanders back, none of which was based on any of
the research outlined in the rest of the report.
So, being very unsatisfied with the fact that
this bit was always quoted in law proceedings, public statements
or wherever, we asked for the draft, and lo and behold we were
told that all copies of the drafts had been destroyed following
a meeting between officials and consultants. We asked why that
was and they said, "It is standard practice. We do not keep
drafts after six months." We said, "There was litigation
pending at the time, in 2002. You might have been required to
produce all drafts of the report. Surely you would not have destroyed
them without consultation with the legal department, at least."
There was no answer to that, so we asked for the electronic copies—this
is all under the Freedom of Information Act, and the questions
were suggested by the UK-Chagos Support Association, so I can
refer to it.
The terms of reference in clause 17 say that
the consultants will supply electronic and hard-copy versions
of their draft report, and following comments from the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office and the BIOT, consultants will then finalise
their report. That was the structure built in to the terms of
reference. We asked for the electronic copies and all we got was
the reply, "There aren't any."
Q143 Chairman: That was the basis
for the ministerial answers. I have one from the then Minister,
Bill Rammell, in 2004, who said it would be "highly precarious"—a
phrase you used—and would involve expensive underwriting
by the UK Government for an open-ended period, probably permanently.
The line we are getting from the Government is that there would
be contingent liabilities indefinitely and it would not be a sustainable
return, therefore there would be an unquantifiable cost to the
taxpayer, which means that it is not justifiable. Are you saying
that that is not the case, according to some of the earlier drafting?
Can you put a figure on the costs of resettlement—both the
immediate costs and the long-term costs of contingent liabilities?
Mr. Gifford: The Government's
stab at producing figures is very worrying. When Bill Rammell
announced to me the cessation of the feasibility studies in June
2004 following the passing of the Orders in Council, he told me
that the cost was estimated at £5 million. I was a bit staggered
by that and said, "That is not very much. It is the cost
of an embassy building. It is not much by the side of expenditure
on other Overseas Territories. To right an historical injustice
it is very modest." However, that figure then got altered.
By the time we got to court somebody in the Department had re-calculated
and come up with £22 million. Worryingly, I have just been
given a copy of the National Audit Office report and the only
reference to the BIOT—
Q144 Chairman: Is that the report,
"Managing Risk", which was published recently?
Mr. Gifford: Yes. I was staggered
to see the description of risk in respect of resettling. Under
"potential cost" it says that the 2002 study estimated
resettlement costs would be in the order of £40 million over
10 years. The resettlement study in 2002 was expressly prohibited
by its terms of reference from dealing with costs, and it did
not come up with a single figure. I hardly think that Sir John
has cooked up that figure.
Q145 Chairman: Sir John Bourn, not
Sir John Stanley?
Mr. Gifford: Yes.
We must not shrink from the fact that there
will be a cost, possibly a substantial cost, for rehabilitating
the islands. We think it would be right to share the cost; we
think there are funds in Europe. We went to the chairman of the
European Development Fund to deal with the Government's argument,
since we were told we could not go to the EDF because we are talking
about an unpopulated territory. We got a sympathetic Member of
the European Parliament to ask the chairman of the fund, "What
if the islanders went back? Would funds then be available?"
He gave a formal reply saying that a resettled population would
be able to apply for the next round of funding from the EDF. So
the answer was yes.
I want to come finally to the conclusion of
our consultant, which is that clear income opportunities for settlers
and general revenues to their local councils have been identified
and Chagos would have much less need for annual subventions than
most other Overseas Territories.
Q146 Chairman: But there would be
some need for the Department for International Development or
another Government Department to give ongoing support to the community
there.
Mr. Gifford: Yes, but diminishing
support. There are better economic prospects for Chagos than there
are in many other Overseas Territories.
Q147 Chairman: We are talking a maximum
of 1,000 people to be resettled, as we discussed earlier.
Mr. Gifford: Yes, the initial
phase is identified as 150 families, which equates to about 750
people of different ages.
Q148 Mr. Keetch: You mentioned earlier
that Salomon island and Peros Banhos had been identified as the
two islands to which you would initially want to go back. The
map that we have is not wonderful. How far from Diego Garcia are
those islands?
Mr. Gifford: One hundred and thirty-five
nautical miles.
Q149 Mr. Keetch: So they are not
literally across the bay? They are a long way away.
Mr. Gifford: They are a long way
away—they are right across the Great Chagos bank, which
is rather hazardous to cross.
Q150 Mr. Keetch: So people there
would pose no clear security threat to what is happening on Diego
Garcia?
Mr. Gifford: That is our view.
Q151 Mr. Keetch: Okay. May I ask
what happens on those islands at the moment? If I were to come
along in my little yacht and decided to land on Salomon Island,
would the US military stop me?
Mr. Gifford: No. If that were,
by chance, to happen, you would get a visit from the fisheries
protection vessel, which would issue you with a ticket for $30,
and that would count as a permit to be on the islands. But you
would have to stay on your boat overnight; you are allowed to
walk around the islands in the daytime, but you have to stay on
your boat at night, which would be moored in the lagoon, along
with the 20 or 30 other ocean-going yachts that bowl up.
Q152 Mr. Keetch: Who gets that $30?
Mr. Gifford: It goes to the BIOT
administration.
Q153 Mr. Keetch: So the UK Treasury
is getting the funds from moorings and such things over there?
Mr. Gifford: Yes, but its principal
revenue is from fishing licences, which bring in between £1
million and £2 million a year.
Q154 Mr. Keetch: What would you estimate
is the revenue that the UK taxpayer gains from fishing and boating—£1.5
million a year?
Mr. Gifford: Yes. It has been
as high as £2 million in a year, and there are answers to
parliamentary questions on all this.
Q155 Mr. Keetch: To be clear, we
are actually gaining revenue from these islands?
Mr. Gifford: Well, it is said
that it costs as much as it brings in to run the fisheries protection
vessel and the BIOT presence on the island.
Q156 Sandra Osborne: Can I ask you
about compensation? I believe that there have been some settlements
in the past, including a full and final settlement in 1982. It
has been established in the UK courts that the UK Government are
under no legal obligation to pay further compensation. Why do
you believe that there is an entitlement to further compensation?
Mr. Gifford: We think that the
settlement in 1982 was conducted largely without consultation.
In its terms of settlement, it was unfair. In its implementation,
the very detailed legal acknowledgement and surrender that the
islanders were required to sign was neither explained nor translated.
In accepting the last tranche of compensation of about 600 rupees,
which was only worth about £20 or £30 in those days—the
whole amount was only about £2,500—they were required
to thumbprint a very legalistic form that the British Government
required the Mauritians to obtain. That, sadly, is held up to
be the basis of the finality of the settlement.
Nothing was done to find out from the community
what its needs were or whether it wanted training, jobs, housing
or repatriation—none of those things was gone into at the
time. A lump sum was simply negotiated between the British Government
and the Mauritian Government, who were going to disburse it. The
question was what they would have to pay to get rid of the problem,
but they did not get rid of the problem. The islanders have never
integrated: they have maintained their own separate identity and
they have suffered more than most in their communities and in
their personal lives. There is an illness that the Chagossians
recognise; it is called sagrin, which we might know as chagrin—they
die of sadness because they want to go home. It is thought that
compensation is appropriate in those circumstances.
Q157 Sandra Osborne: Given what you
have just said, is there a level of compensation at which the
islanders would give up their right to return?
Mr. Gifford: Even if you asked
the Government these days, I do not think that they would say
it was possible to surrender your birthright in that way. I do
not think that you could conceptually construct a settlement that
would enable that to happen. There might be islanders who do not
want to go back, and many certainly would wish to receive compensation
for what they have suffered. However, I do not think that these
days you could bargain away such a fundamental right, as the Court
of Appeal said.
Q158 Sandra Osborne: Do you have
a view on whether the habitual residence test for Chagossian benefits
claimants in the UK should be removed?
Mr. Bancoult: What happened to
the Chagossians has been described as a violation of human rights.
As a result of a decision taken by the British Government, we
were uprooted and are now living in huge poverty in Mauritius.
We are now able to have British passports. I am aware that the
Foreign Affairs Committee has just presented a White Paper on
citizenship, but it did not mention us, because the island has
no population and is used for US purposes. The judgment in 2000
did not give us anything on a plate. It is a shame that we have
to go to court to be recognised as British subjects. A special
case should be made for Chagossians to settle in the UK, where
many facilities can be offered to them. I would also like to raise
a very important point about gender discrimination. Some people
make a division in families, so that some are entitled to British
passports and some are not I simply request that that be discussed
and an explanation found.
Q159 Chairman: You said at the very
beginning that there are about 1,000 Chagossian people in the
UK. How old are they? Are they very elderly or is there a spectrum
of ages?
Mr. Bancoult: Most of those who
have settled in the UK are the second generation: I mean children
whose mother or father are Chagossian. Most of the native Chagossians
are still suffering in Mauritius. It is very difficult for them,
because they have always lived on a tropical island, to come here.
I must add that it is very expensive to have a British passport.
To get one in Mauritius costs 7,100 rupees, which is more than
£110 and is difficult for Chagossians to find. We would like
to, but it is very difficult.
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