Labour - another day, another calamity…
Utter treachery and deceit from our illustrious government.
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
Labour ministers now face claims that they misled Parliament and the press with an “accountancy trick” to hide the size of the bill from taxpayers.
Under the terms of Sir Keir’s deal, the UK will give up the Chagos Islands by the end of this year and lease back the Diego Garcia military base, a facility built there in the 1970s that has been used by UK and US forces.
The cost of the agreement has been fiercely disputed. Sir Keir claimed in May that it would be £3.4bn over 99 years, accounting for inflation and other discounts, but the Conservatives said it would total £30bn.
An official document produced by the Government Actuary’s Department shows the cost of the deal was first estimated at 10 times Sir Keir’s figure, at £34.7bn, in nominal terms.
It explains how the cost was lowered by the Government using inflation estimates, then reduced again under a controversial accounting method sometimes used for long-term projects.
The total cost, which ministers refused to release to Parliament, is equivalent to 10 Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, or more than half the annual schools’ budget.