Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much money his Department has committed to the international fund for the inspection and assessment of the FSO Safer, moored in waters off the Yemeni coast.

The FSO SAFER oil tanker poses an extreme environmental risk to Yemen and the Red Sea. The UK has contributed £2.5 million to fund the UN assessment and repair mission and we are considering what more we can do to support the UN to develop robust contingency plans. The UK has put this issue on the international agenda. UK-funded research identified the threat posed by the tanker - a spill four times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill and costing up to $20 billion - and this was used by the UN and the US to underpin their assessments. We regularly lobby the Houthis at senior levels to urge them to facilitate the UN mission as a matter of urgency.