British Nationals Abroad: Coronavirus

(asked on 11th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many UK citizens stranded abroad have (a) made enquiries, (b) applied for and (c) been granted an emergency repatriation loan as at 7 May 2020.


Answered by
Nigel Adams Portrait
Nigel Adams
This question was answered on 20th May 2020

The welfare of British nationals remains our top priority, and we remain committed to ensuring that British travellers around the globe are able to return home.

British nationals and UK residents who are overseas and wish to return to the UK, but cannot afford travel costs and have no other options for getting funds to return home, may apply for an emergency loan from the Government as a last resort. Only basic costs can be included in a loan, usually the cheapest one-way ticket to the UK.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) usually issues around 250 emergency repatriation loans per year and so far, this year, has approved over 1,000 loans. Some loans are still being processed. Since 7 April 2020, the FCO has been working with Corporate Travel Management (CTM), which is authorised to administer such loans on behalf of the FCO, to extend the FCO's capacity to consider loan requests from British nationals.

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