Britain has been asked to pay up billions of pounds of taxpayers' cash as part of the Chagos Islands surrender, it has emerged. In October, Sir Keir Starmer and Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth announced that the two countries had agreed to hand over the British Overseas Territory,

Downing Street has refused to reveal how much it has offered to pay Mauritius for a 99-year lease of the crucial Anglo-American military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos atolls.