Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which international election observation missions his Department provided financial support for the participation of UK observers in each year since 2010; how much such finance his Department provided in each such year; which international election observation missions his Department plans to provide financial support for the participation of UK observers in 2018-19; how much such finance his Department has committed for 2018-19; whether there have been any changes to his Department's policy for supporting and funding such missions in 2018-19; and whether his Department plans to make any such changes for future financial years.

The budget for election observation missions (EOMs) is devolved to each Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) geographical department, so figures are not held centrally. This year the UK has sent observers to the OSCE EOMs in Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Montenegro, and will be sending observers to the EOMs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Moldova. We shall assess which OSCE EOMs the UK will send observers to in 2019 once we have confirmation from the OSCE of the elections they plan to observe.

In addition, the UK funds observers to EU EOMs through our delivery partner, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. We have also granted the Commonwealth Secretariat £1.8m for their work across the Commonwealth on EOMs.

There has been no change in policy on the UK's commitment to supporting election observation missions. It will not be possible to fund observers for every mission. We focus our contributions where they can have most practical impact, whether through EOMs or other democracy initiatives, such as those detailed in the 2017 FCO Human Rights Report.