Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how many new enquiries her Department’s MP hotline teams dealt with in each month in 2021; what steps her Department takes to manage the (a) performance and (b) case management of teams that deal with those enquiries; what steps she is taking to oversee the performance of those hotlines; and if she will make a statement.

The FCDO has an 24/7/365 consular hotline for MPs to raise cases involving their British national constituents who are overseas and in need of consular assistance. The MP's consular hotline handled 1,839 calls during 2021 with an average time to answer calls of less than 30 seconds.

The Consular hotline for MPs is staffed using FCDO consular staff, and their performance is overseen within Consular Directorate. The MP hotline, along with the telephone lines for members of the public, are managed internally through a robust performance system with ambitious Key Performance Indicators.