Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to provide more effective support through (a) embassies and (b) consulates to UK nationals during crises abroad.

FCDO consular assistance is available 24/7, 365 days a year. We have improved the ability to expand our enquiry handling during a crisis through new digital telephony and AI tools.

Whenever a major incident happens overseas and a crisis evolves that affects British nationals - a natural disaster or extreme weather event, a large-scale accident, civil unrest, terrorism or conflict - the FCDO flex and scale our consular response to support those who are directly affected. If a cross Whitehall response is required, the FCDO will lead and coordinate the UK Governments effort, this might include coordinating an assisted departure or an evacuation (as a last resort).

The FCDO is committed to learning lessons from past crises and completes a lessons-learned exercise after every crisis response. These lessons enable the FCDO to improve processes and systems, and to review what has worked to enable better preparation and mitigation of future crises. The lessons are also implemented into the continuous training offer available to FCDO staff.