Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether his (a) Department and (b) Department's agencies have entered into contracts with CTF Partners since 2015.
Answered by Alan Duncan
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has not entered into any contracts with CTF Partners Ltd. Information relating to FCO Executive Agencies is not held centrally and therefore not readily available.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether (a) his Department, (b) his Department's agencies and (c) his Department's associated public bodies have entered into contracts with Emerdata Limited in the last year.
Answered by Alan Duncan
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has not entered into any contracts with Emerdata Limited.
Information relating to FCO Executive Agencies and public bodies is not held centrally and therefore not readily available.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what meetings were held between (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department and Alexander Nix of Cambridge Analytica in December 2016.
Answered by Alan Duncan
I met Alexander Nix on 7 December 2016. The Foreign Secretary met Alexander Nix on 8 December 2016. FCO officials in London, Washington and New York occasionally met Alexander Nix and representatives from Cambridge Analytica starting in 2016. These meetings were part of normal diplomatic business aimed at understanding the 2016 presidential election in the US, the ensuing political environment, and the Trump Presidential campaign and transition team.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many records his Department holds that have reached the time limit for their transfer to the National Archives but have not been transferred.
Answered by Alan Duncan
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is not able to calculate the number of records it holds which are dated 31 December 1994 or earlier without incurring disproportionate cost. However, the FCO does publish information about its archive holdings and record release programme at www.gov.uk/archive-records. This includes an inventory with estimates of FCO archive holdings at file (rather than record) level as well the date ranges of our archive record collections. An updated version of the FCO archive inventory will be published this year.
The FCO is committed to compliance with the Public Records Act. Any files which have passed their review date and which are still held by the FCO are retained in compliance with the Act under a legal instrument.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many UK citizens currently resident elsewhere in the EU his Department expects to return to the UK as a result of the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by Alan Duncan
The Withdrawal Agreement, and the detailed political declaration on the terms of our future relationship, include protection for the rights of citizens, including UK citizens currently living in the EU. There should therefore be no need for UK citizens to return as a result of the UK leaving the EU.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what estimate he has made of the additional consular staff that will be needed in UK missions as a result of the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) consular service assists British people living, travelling and working around the world when they are most in need. In the context of EU Exit, we are working to reduce the number of preventable incidents through the provision of clear information to UK people living, working and travelling in the EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states about their rights and access to services. The FCO will continue to provide professional consular assistance to UK nationals, prioritising the most vulnerable. We envisage an increase in enquiries, notarial work, requests for consular assistance and the complexity of consular cases as a result of EU Exit. We are therefore significantly increasing the capacity of the network, including the Global Consular Contact Centre, which handles all telephone and written consular enquiries for our embassies, high commissions and consulates in the EU and EFTA states. The FCO is also planning information campaigns to signpost UK nationals resident and travelling in the EU and EFTA states to practical information on gov.uk.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether it is the Government's policy to support the drafting of a resolution at the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, to the International Criminal Court so that allegations of atrocities can be impartially investigated.
Answered by Mark Field
We continue to work in the UN Security Council to ensure it remains strongly focused on the Rohingya crisis, including discussing accountability. While we keep this under constant review, we are not pursuing a referral to the ICC at this time for two reasons. First, we know the Council is divided on the issue of an ICC referral. A vetoed resolution now would do nothing to further the cause of accountability. Second, on 31 May the Burmese Government announced its own Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations in northern Rakhine. The UK has welcomed the Commission while making clear that it needs to be credible, transparent and impartial. The ICC only takes up cases if referred when national authorities prove unable or unwilling to prosecute.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many bonuses were awarded to senior civil servants working at his Department and its agencies in each of the last six years; and what the total cost of those bonuses was.
Answered by Alan Duncan
As part of the Government’s transparency agenda, departments publish annual information on the number of awards and spend on end-year and in-year Non-Consolidated Performance Related Pay. This information can be found on the FCO’s website - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/foreign-and-commonwealth-office-non-consolidated-performance-related-pay - and on data.gov.uk. Information for future years will be published in the usual way
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which (a) external data analysts and (b) data collection companies his Department has used in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alan Duncan
All Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) requests to use external contractor staff must be approved by the Chief Operating Officer during the on-going Civil Service-wide recruitment freeze. Our records show that only one request has been submitted to specifically bring in an external data analyst for a time-limited period over the last five years. This individual was recruited via the FCO’s managed service provider, Hays Recruitment. The FCO does not centrally hold data on the use of data collection companies. To provide this information would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his counterpart in the US administration on UK nationals who have been refused entry to the US for business or tourism under the visa waiver programme because of dual citizenship with a country on the US travel ban list.
Answered by Alan Duncan
We have not made representations on this particular issue because affected individuals can still apply for a visa for travel to the US. US immigration decisions are a matter for the US authorities alone.