Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will list the occasions on which UK (a) Ministers and (b) officials have met with the Ambassador of Eritrea to the Court of St James's in each year since 2010.

FCDO Ministers have met the Eritrean Ambassador three times in the last three years. These were: a virtual meeting with Minister Duddridge in March 2021, a virtual meeting with Africa Union Heads of Mission, also March, which the Eritrean Ambassador chaired as Dean, and a bilateral meeting of the then Minister for Africa in 2019. Senior officials have also met the Eritrean Ambassador four times in the last three years. Information for the period 2010 - 2017 is not readily available, but we estimate that Ministerial and senior official contact was very limited during this period.