Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 9:30 am on 15 February 2006.
That is a good and appropriate question. The further the controversy develops, the more exactly that question will need to be answered. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the global figure. I know how much DFID has spent, and that the Foreign Office has spent a substantial amount on legal advice, but we should also consider the administration of the island.
Britain committed itself both politically and financially to the course of action that it now proposes to abandon, and the Americans have, in their own way, contributed to its development. One of the oddities of Ascension is that, despite its small population, it has two sets of roads. On one, people drive on the right, while on the other they drive on the left, because America has a big presence and nobody has thought to integrate the two sets of roads. That is one of the lasting legacies of American involvement there.
One set of the British authorities' arguments involves contingent liability, which has never been properly explained, while the other involves security, which has not been explained either. Indeed, it is a rather odd argument. When the development of the island was first raised, the British military authorities and GCHQ apparently saw no problem and raised no objection. Ascension is a very secure island—one has to get security clearance to go there, and then to go to Brize Norton to get on an aeroplane—and it is not as though people just wander in and out.
The British authorities saw no problem, nor did the Americans—indeed, they agreed that civilian flights should go there—but something suddenly changed in the middle of last year. I can only speculate, as I have no proof whatever, that the United States undertook a major security review of its strategic objectives. At some point, somebody in the Pentagon must have raised objections to having a permanent population and an increased number of tourists on Ascension. It would appear that the British Government simply rolled over and accepted that, regardless of the commitments they had made to the islanders.
That is a hypothesis; one can only assume that it is what happened. The comments made at a public meeting by the major responsible for the base on the island rather confirmed that that was what occurred, but I have no proof. Whatever the case, it appears that the British Government have been rather spineless in their dealings with the Americans over the matter.
My final point is that spinelessness might have been excusable if major strategic interests were involved. What is inexcusable is how the British Government have acted over the past two months. Instead of being honest in saying that we have a problem and that we will have to do a U-turn, they have reverted to the most extraordinary deviousness in their attempts to deal with information, and to denying the facts.
Let me give just two examples. I am not criticising the Minister personally, because he has put his signature to parliamentary questions on an issue that is not his direct responsibility. I asked him a fairly innocuous parliamentary question about whether the Government had ever set a timetable for legislation on property rights. He replied:
"The Government have provided no such timetable to the Ascension Island Council".
Actually, I have here—month by month, date by date—a timetable that was agreed with the British authorities. It was drawn up by the Attorney-General for the islands, who covers St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and who came out from London, briefed by the Foreign Office, and prepared the work on the timetable with the full knowledge and support of the British authorities, yet the Government are now claiming that there is no such thing.
The Government have also supported and subscribed to a series of programmes and timetables, such as the Ascension Island strategic plan for 2003–08 and the land management plan. They even submitted a report to the European Commission on the plan for the island, so it is completely wrong to say that the Government have no responsibility for planning the transition to legal rights. I hope that the Minister will have a chance to talk to his officials about the things they have asked him to sign.
To take another example, I asked a parliamentary question about the basis of employment. The Minister replied:
"There has been no change to the basis on which people work and live on Ascension Island".—[Hansard, 6 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 763–64W.]
That repeats the Foreign Office line that everybody there is a contract worker, which is simply not true. Substantial numbers of people, in Ascension Island terms, have been admitted on a flexible basis—not necessarily linked to contracts—such as business people and members of families who have been reunited. The expectation of normalisation was explicit.
The deviousness that I mentioned extends to foreign investors. In entirely good faith, British companies—Obsidion Group, for example—bought property under the privatisation programme. I have the contract for the privatisation here. It makes it clear that the document was approved by the British authorities, who said that the company would be issued with a long-term lease. It bid, it paid and it acquired its asset, but when it asked where its long-term lease was, it was told, "Sorry, we don't have one." When it asked for meetings at the Foreign Office, it was refused. So, the acts of bad faith do not relate just to the islanders, but affect other people who have brought their resources and given their commitment to the island. There is something very unsatisfactory about the whole episode.
I apologise, Mr. Bercow, for having spoken for rather longer than I should have, but I thought it necessary to spell out the facts. I think that this is a story that will run and run. We are probably just at the first stages of exposing a very seedy and disreputable episode in recent British colonial history, and I hope that colleagues from all parts of the House will join me in trying to take the matter forward. I was about to conclude, but I give way to Mr. Clifton-Brown.