Speeches

Ben Wallace – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Wallace on 2014-06-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his US counterpart on the extension of the lease for Diego Garcia Airbase.

Mark Simmonds

We welcome the US presence on Diego Garcia, and we have said we want to see it continue. The current agreement does not conclude until December 2016, and we have not yet held substantive discussions with the US about this subject. I expect my officials to begin doing so later this year.