Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much his Department plans to spend on specialist kidnap negotiation and hostage rescue capabilities in British consulates in the next 12 months.

The Government’s response to overseas hostage taking brings together skills and capabilities across a range of Departments. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is the lead Department where British nationals are kidnapped by a terrorist group. Expenditure can be dependent on factors including the number of incidents. In the current Financial Year the FCO will spend around £253,000 on specialist hostage negotiation capability, and on training for the staff in the FCO and our global network who coordinate the Government’s response to the kidnap of British nationals overseas. This training programme ensures our overseas network is prepared to respond effectively when British nationals are taken hostage by terrorists. The FCO's exact expenditure on kidnap response in the year ahead will depend in part on the number of live cases, but is likely to be of a similar magnitude.