Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the Foreign Affairs Committee’s Third Session Report 2019-21, Flying Home: the FCO’s consular response to the COVID-19 pandemic, whether the unused funds from the repatriation efforts during the covid-19 outbreak can be put towards assisting the families of British nationals who are (a) murdered or (b) die in suspicious circumstances overseas.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Honourable Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work.
The £75 million mentioned in the Foreign Affairs Committee's report was an upper spending limit agreed specifically to support repatriation operations in response to COVID-19. It was not a funding allocation and is not therefore available to other areas of consular assistance.
The FCDO provides tailored assistance to those who need our help. In addition the FCDO contributes funding, via the Ministry of Justice, to the Victim Support Homicide Service to provide support to eligible families bereaved abroad.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to paragraph 11 of the Foreign Affairs Committee report, Flying Home: The FCO's consular response to the covid-19 pandemic, published on 28 July 2020, for what reasons British citizens stranded abroad during the covid-19 pandemic have been advised to crowdfund for support for their repatriation and have not all received support from the Government's £75 million allocated to fly people back to the UK.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Honourable Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work. Advice on financial assistance for British Nationals abroad is longstanding and sets out all possible options British nationals may explore given the FCDO is not funded to provide financial assistance. We have recently reinforced to consular staff that while individuals may choose to crowdfund this is not an option we require them to explore before they seek an emergency loan to return home. The £75 million referred to was a maximum limit, not a target. We do not accept the Foreign Affairs Committee's suggestion that unspent funds meant those in need did not receive the repatriation support that they needed. The FCDO spent against the funding limit where needed to keep HMG charter flights affordable, in particular where there were fewer British travellers and where there was a need for connecting flights or significant ground transport. Our policy meant that we subsidised flights where it was necessary.
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Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, on what basis the decision was made to publish advice on his Department's website that British citizens stranded abroad during the covid-19 pandemic should crowdfund if they could not afford to travel back to the UK.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Honourable Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work.
Advice on financial assistance for British Nationals abroad is longstanding and sets out all possible options British nationals may explore given the FCDO is not funded to provide financial assistance. We have recently reinforced to consular staff that while individuals may choose to crowdfund this is not an option we require them to explore before they seek an emergency loan to return home.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what method his Department uses to assess the vulnerability of citizens requesting consular assistance; and what assessment he has made of the potential merits of using a matrix approach as used by the Australian Government for that purpose.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Hon Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work. Our consular staff provide tailored assistance and advice to British nationals according to the individual circumstances of each person based on the needs they have, based on who they are, where they are, and their situation. Our staff will make an assessment of the vulnerability of a British national, aiming to assess their needs promptly, making every effort to contact vulnerable British nationals within 24 hours of being notified of their situation.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what proportion of the cost of a passport contributes to his Department's budget for consular services.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Honourable Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work.
The FCDO receives a consular premium of £15.50 which represents 21% of the cost of a standard adult passport (£75.50) to fund its non-fee bearing consular services.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what proportion of the Consular premium on passports contributes to his Department's budget.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Honourable Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work.
The FCDO receives 96% of the Consular premium on passports to fund its non fee bearing consular services.
The remaining 4% is added to the Emergency Disaster Relief Fund (EDRF) and the FCDO is able to draw on the EDRF to fund its response to major crises on a cost recovery basis.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether the funding allocated to the Lucie Blackman Trust is to help it support families bereaved abroad in addition to cases of missing persons.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Honourable Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work.
The funding allocated to the Lucie Blackman Trust is to support missing British nationals abroad and their families; the Lucie Blackman Trust has not received funding from the FCDO to support families bereaved abroad.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department is developing contingency plans to improve its (a) consular and (b) repatriation support for British nationals overseas in the event of another pandemic.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Honourable Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work.
As part of our overall approach to crisis preparedness in the FCDO, we continuously review our plans and processes to ensure that they reflect lessons learned from recent crisis responses. Our learning from the COVID-19 pandemic response has led to us increasing our capacity to plan for pandemics of this scale in the future, including the provision of consular services and the repatriation of British nationals overseas. We have set up a Repatriation Taskforce which is continuing to monitor future repatriation risk, build future FCDO capability and is able to run more charters if needed. Going forward, planning for large scale repatriations will be incorporated into the FCDO's core crisis response capability.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will place in the Library a copy of the internal guidance issued to staff when assessing whether people need consular assistance.
Answered by Nigel Adams
I was pleased to meet with the Hon Lady on 19th October to discuss the FCDO's consular work.
As part of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's (FCDO) commitment to transparency, details of FCDO's consular assistance are available online on http://www.gov.uk in our publication entitled "Support for British Nationals Abroad: A Guide". We consider that there is a strong public interest in protecting the space our staff have to consider and discuss options when making decisions on individual cases, particularly when offering assistance in difficult and distressing circumstances. We consider that their ability to do this, and our overall ability to ensure that we provide a tailored service to those most in need of our help, is likely to be negatively impacted by placing our internal guidance in the Library, which would not be in the public interest.
Asked by: Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of treating dual nationals as it does people with non-dual nationality status for the purposes of consular support.
Answered by Nigel Adams
We are able to provide full consular support to dual British nationals in a third country (a country of which they are not a national). We would not normally provide consular support to dual British nationals in the country of their other nationality, or get involved in dealings between the individual and the authorities of that state. We may make an exception to this rule if, depending on the circumstances of the case, we consider that the individual is vulnerable and we have humanitarian concerns, for example cases involving a murder or manslaughter, children, forced marriage or an offence which carries the death penalty. However, the help we can provide will depend on the circumstances and the state of the British national's other nationality agreeing to our help.