Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many full-time equivalent permanent staff in his Department are allocated to working on negotiations towards securing an agreement on the proposal to establish a Marine Protected Area in the Weddell Sea at the next annual meeting of the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

​Issues pertaining to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources are covered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) Polar Regions Department, which currently has 6.5 full-time equivalent permanent staff. This team is also supported on the development of the Weddell Sea Marine Protection Area proposal by FCO Legal Advisers and scientific and technical experts from the British Antarctic Survey and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science.