A former UK special adviser to the British Foreign Secretary said yesterday it was an “outrage” that the Overseas Territories, including Bermuda, did not have MPs and lords representing them in Westminster.

Ben Judah, who developed a proposal to incorporate the OTs into Britain while at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, also told The Royal Gazette that the territories needed their own Secretary of State in the Cabinet who would have time to visit them.

“I don't think that the Overseas Territories should be represented in Whitehall in the Foreign Office,” he said.

“There should be a department for the Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies and, under my vision, they would all be called overseas kingdoms.”

Mr Judah told the Winston Marshall Show — a British podcast — at the weekend about the proposal that he drew up for David Lammy, who was then the Foreign Secretary.

He said Mr Lammy was “intrigued” and asked him to “come up with some first steps”.

Mr Judah suggested three initial changes: representation for the territories in the House of Lords, the formation of an OT volunteer corps and an education campaign in the UK.

A Cabinet reshuffle in September saw Mr Lammy appointed Deputy Prime Minister, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, and Mr Judah was moved briefly to the Ministry of Justice.

“I think that killed it,” Mr Judah said, when the Gazette interviewed him yesterday.

“I think that there is lots of enthusiasm for the idea in the House of Lords, in the Commons, in the public, but it is not government policy.”

The Gazette has asked the Governor and the FCDO if the proposal is still being developed.

Mr Judah said he worked on his concept while “preparing options papers for the [Overseas Territories] Joint Ministerial Council”.

He added: “I was workshopping a proposal to take to the Foreign Secretary and it was very much in the policy planning stage.

“ … I felt that the bonds needed to be tightened between the British family overseas and Westminster and I felt it would be a good idea to exploit the flexibility of the constitution by offering the Overseas Territories the right to choose members of the House of the Lords.

“The details of that I hadn’t quite fully worked out.”

The author and political commentator said his personal vision for a “global Britain”, which he plans to publish in a policy paper, went beyond the proposal he drafted at the FCDO and included the OTs being able to elect MPs to sit in the House of Commons.

“These are historic parts of the British family and it's an outrage, in my opinion, that they've never had MPs and lords and it's about setting things up so they get the best service from the UK and that they are part, in a different way, of the UK that matches their status in the world.”

He said some OTs were so small they should probably share an MP, though not Bermuda or the Caribbean territories, which should get their own.

Mr Judah told the podcast that Britain could get involved in providing public services in the territories.

He said: “They're not huge populations, but places like the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and these places have become a bit of a problem for the UK because they don't receive any sort of large amounts of money or support from us.

“In some ways they’ve become quite corrupt, like the British Virgin Islands; a lot of corruption that takes place there.

“Brits don't even know about them. The best outcome, in my view, would be to incorporate them boldly and proudly into the UK, give the people better public services so their local elites don't need to do this sort of ‘fraudulenting’ that they're doing. And I think it would be a great statement about a global Britain.”

Mr Judah told the Gazette his remark about fraudulent behaviour was not a reference to Bermuda and he was not proposing taxing citizens of the island to pay for public services.

Rather, he said, the island could opt for a form of “devolution max” enabling it to continue to manage its own fiscal affairs and conversations could be had about how to fund any help from Britain.

“The flexibility of the British Constitution means that we could have much deeper devolution of these matters to reflect as closely as possible the status quo,” he said.

He added: “ … under my proposal, I would not view their autonomy changing, and the British Constitution allows that, because they would just have a far greater devolution than Scotland.”

He said giving the OTs a say in Westminister, especially when matters concerning them were being debated in Parliament, would be a demonstration of commitment on both sides.

Mr Judah suggested the name Overseas Territories was “outdated, colonial and doesn't offer these members of the British family the full respect that they deserve”. He said “overseas kingdoms” was more apt.

He added that his personal vision “was about changing the name, it's about having a voice in Parliament, it's about getting off the UN [United Nations] colony list, it's about making them much more visible in British politics and in British society and it's about using that to resolve their problems to get them a lot of what they need and want from Britain”.

He stressed that nothing should change without the backing of the OTs.

The bulk of his interview with Mr Marshall was about his involvement in Britain’s controversial ― and now stalled ― Chagos Islands deal, to cede sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius.

He highlighted the different approach taken by the French in “wrapping up its empire” by giving some overseas territories, such as Guadeloupe, the same status as metropolitan France.

“We haven't done that, and I think we need to move in that direction, and I'd love to see places like Bermuda or the Falklands become overseas kingdoms, part of the United Kingdom …” he said.

Mr Judah added: “I think we need to start dreaming big as a country and, for me, all of the politics of this, the 4D chess of this, is so difficult that I thought that the Labour Party needed to show that we don't have a surrender agenda.

“Actually, we want an expansion agenda. And the best thing to prove that would be to actually do it.”

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said last night the Government “is aware of Mr Judah’s comments”.