Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assistance his Department is providing to the British Virgin Islands for hurricane preparedness.

The UK Government has worked closely with the British Virgin Islands (BVI) Government over the last five years to improve hurricane preparedness. In 2018 the UK provided BVI over £740,000 of equipment such as generators, dumper trucks and repairs equipment. Since then a further £120,000 has been provided for training, communications and development of an Early Warning System mobile app. Royal Navy ships have also deployed to the Caribbean during the period, for instance HMS Dauntless this year.

In addition, Darwin Plus has allocated over £1 million for projects that will directly support or contribute towards hurricane resilience in the BVI and the UK's Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change Programme, funded by the Integrated Security Fund, has provided over £250,000 for capacity building and technical advice on climate related resilience for BVI.