Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the FCDO’s crisis response fund for 2025-26.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) maintains the Humanitarian Crisis Reserve (HCR) fund, which has the primary benefit of enabling flexible and rapid response to new humanitarian crises (e.g. earthquakes, floods, cyclones). Decisions about allocations are made by the Minister for Development and can be used in Official Development Assistance eligible countries only. The UK's commitment to supporting humanitarian aid across the world and responding flexibly remains a priority.

Moreover, the FCDO Crisis Management Department has been allocated £227,500 for routine crisis management in Financial Year 25/26. This is used to meet the additional costs of responding to international crises, such as deploying Rapid Deployment Teams to affected areas, staffing and running the London crisis centre, and emergent procurement, i.e. chartering aircraft for an evacuation. If a single crisis response is projected to cost the FCDO more than £150,000, we will ask HM Treasury for additional funding from the Emergency Disaster Response Fund.