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Hello, I'm Sean Curran, and this is yesterday in Parliament from BBC Radio 4.

On Monday, the 26th of January, the Conservatives were accused of using parliamentary stunts

to delay the deal to hand the Chegos Island to Mauritius.

When members of the Lords left Westminster on Friday, they expected to start this week

with a debate and vote on legislation, bringing into force the Cheagos deal, under which

the UK will lease back the British-American military base on Diego Garcia. But ministers

pressed the pause button after the Conservatives tabled an amendment, calling for a delay

in light of what they called changing geopolitical circumstances, a diplomatic way of describing

President Trump's denunciation of the deal as an act of great stupidity.

A Foreign Office Minister, Stephen Doughty, accused the Conservatives of trying to wreck the bill.

This is an irresponsible and reckless behaviour from the official opposition in the Second House

using programming tactics to frustrate the implementation of a treaty

on a critical national security matter.

He'd been called to the Commons to answer an urgent question

from the Conservative shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Pretty Patel,

who said the government had pulled the bill to avoid being defeated in the Lords.

In their rush to appease the wishes of their left-wing lawyer friends, Labour overlooked this very

1996 treaty between the UK and the US, which states that the British Indian Ocean Territory

shall remain under the United Kingdom sovereignty. So can the Minister tell us, does he accept

that the bill and the treaty violates this very 1966 treaty with the US?

Last week, a shadow Foreign Office Minister, Lord Kalanan, wrote to the government and suggested

...