Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 28 March 2023 to Question 172466 on Mandarin Language, what funding her Department have allocated to part-time optional Mandarin lessons in the next financial year.

The budget for Optional Language Training (OLT) is held by directorates within the FCDO. Eligible staff and spouses/partners can choose to undertake 250 hours of OLT, and are able to request additional hours to reach a higher level by submitting a business case. As the amount spent on OLT each year depends on staff uptake and comes from directorate's discretionary budgets, we cannot say what amount of funding has been allocated this year.