Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much of its budget his Department spent on counter-terrorism in (a) 2014-15 and (b) 2013-14.

Keeping Britain and British nationals safe from terrorism is a top priority for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and we are fully committed to safeguarding the UK's national security. We constantly monitor and review our projects, programmes and diplomatic engagement, as our part of the wider Government efforts on counter-terrorism, to ensure our resources are having the maximum possible impact in the right places as the global security environment changes.

The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) is one of the largest policy Departments in the FCO. The Counter Terrorism Programme Fund (CTPF) is the main fund for terrorism-related assistance to foreign countries used by CTD. The administrative budget for CTD was £237,500 in 2013-14 and the allocation for CTPF was £30 million. The administrative budget for CTD in 2014-15 is £211,000. The figures exclude the staffing costs of individuals working on counter-terrorism in the FCO and across our overseas network. A Written Ministerial Statement will follow on the FCO Strategic Programme Fund allocation for 2014-15, which will include the CTPF. The CTPF is complemented by other budgets used for counter-terrorism related activities and the tri-departmental (FCO, Department for International Development and Ministry of Defence) Conflict Pool, as I set out in my statement to the House on 24 June 2014, Official Report, columns 9-12WS.