Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones has strongly refuted Conservative allegations that the Government's Chagos Islands agreement will cost taxpayers £35 billion rather than the stated £3.4 billion.

The minister told GB News that the Government "does not recognise that figure at all" and insisted the Prime Minister had been transparent about the actual expense.

"The stated figure that the Prime Minister has said is £3.4 billion over the course of the lifetime of this deal, it's around £100 million a year in order to maintain that military base on Diego Garcia," Davies-Jones said.

She emphasised that this represents less than 0.2 per cent of Britain's defence budget, comparing it to less than the price of an aircraft carrier.

GB NEWS / GETTY

The minister defended the agreement as essential for maintaining the strategic military facility and protecting national security.

The controversy stems from documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Conservatives, revealing that the Government Actuary's Department initially calculated the agreement's cost at £34.7 billion in nominal terms.

According to the released papers, civil servants subsequently adjusted this figure downwards by applying a 2.3 per cent annual inflation rate across the 99-year period, reducing it to £10 billion.

The amount was then decreased further using the Treasury's Social Time Preference Rate, which applies a discount of 2.5 to 3.5 per cent annually based on the principle that immediate spending carries greater value than future expenditure.

REUTERS | Sir Keir Starmer had agreed to hand over the strategic territory to Mauritius late last year

Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel accused Labour of employing "an accountancy trick" to conceal the genuine expense from taxpayers.

"We've all known it's a terrible deal with huge costs to hard-pressed British taxpayers. But for months, ministers in public and Parliament have sought to cover up the true amounts," she stated.

Davies-Jones also unveiled plans for a significant expansion of the government's foreign criminal deportation programme during her GB News appearance.

The scheme will increase from eight to 23 countries where convicted foreign nationals can be removed and required to pursue any appeals from their home nations rather than remaining in Britain.

"We're trebling it, in fact, from eight countries, up to 23 because we feel like that is what's best placed for that foreign criminal, to be able to hear that appeal from their home country rather than staying here in the United Kingdom," the Justice Minister explained.

Additionally, the Government announced that foreign criminals will face immediate deportation upon sentencing, with no possibility of returning to the UK.

"Being here in the United Kingdom is a privilege, not a right," Davies-Jones stated.

The minister outlined how the reformed system would eliminate the current requirement for foreign offenders to serve half their sentences in British prisons before removal.

"How it currently works under the previous Tory government is that these criminals would have had to have served 50 per cent of their sentence in prison in England and Wales, costing the taxpayer £54,000 pound a year for bed and board," Davies-Jones explained.

She characterised this arrangement as "outrageous" and argued that immediate deportation would prevent taxpayers from bearing these costs.

"We feel like they should be deported immediately back to their country of origin, not costing the taxpayer a penny and not being able to come back here and hurt our citizens even further," the Justice Minister stated.

The new measures form part of broader Government efforts announced this week to reform the handling of foreign nationals who commit crimes in Britain.