SHADOW CHANCELLOR SLAMS ‘TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE’ CHAGOS ISLANDS COST

SHADOW Chancellor Mel Stride has slammed the cost of the Chagos Islands handover deal as “totally unacceptable” and claimed the true cost is ten times higher than the government’s estimate.

Speaking to GB News, he said: “The Prime Minister, back in February in the House of Commons, suggested about £3.4 billion for the total cost of this arrangement, and we’ve established that it’s about 10 times that. It’s about £35 billion.

“That’s the cost over the 99 years involved here. And it all gets rather technical as to how they’ve narrowed this number down so much. But part of it is assumptions around inflation, but also giving the numbers a very severe haircut using something known as the, I think it’s called the Public Service Discount or something like that, for longer term projects, and that has reduced the number very significantly.

“Now, given that the PM said back in February it was one figure, and it turns out to be 10 times as much, we will of course, be pressing the government very hard on this when Parliament comes back in the autumn.”

“We will be saying in no uncertain terms, look, we were told back in February, when in fact, for example, we had been suggesting then a figure of between £9 billion and £16 billion. And his response was, quote, that that was wide of the mark, suggesting it was far less than this.

“And indeed, the government has used lesser figures since then, so we will be saying, look, why has it taken the Conservative Party and a Freedom of Information request to expose this information, and this dreadful situation where actually the cost to the taxpayer were about 10 times what the government have been suggesting?

“Now that’s not money that’s going to go on helping public services or indeed defending our country in an ever more uncertain world, that is money that is going to the government of Mauritius, who, incidentally, have recently cut taxes for their own citizens, partly because of the funding that they’re now receiving from us. This thing is just totally and utterly unacceptable.”

He added: “I think people understand that when you talk about the cost of an arrangement to last 99 years, you take the annual amount, and you add up all the figures, and you get to your number.

“And as I say, what is now materialised as we’ve got this information through the Freedom of Information request, is not only has a discount been applied because of an assumption around inflation, but also a further discount applied because of the long term nature of this arrangement.

“Now, Angela Rayner, when she came out and told everybody how much the Labour government would be spending on social housing going forward, did similar kind of calculations, but didn’t use the same methodology at all because in that case, the government, of course, wanted to inflate the numbers to make them look bigger.

“On this occasion, they’ve used a different methodology to try and make the number look substantially smaller. And we don’t think that’s being straight with the British people.”