Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many Consular (a) hubs and (b) spokes there are in each region; and what criteria his Department has set for deciding those numbers.

We do not operate a hub and spoke network as such. In line with the FCO’s Consular Strategy 2013-2016, we focus resources on those who need us most and are most at risk. We route calls to all our consular posts overseas to three contact centres in Malaga, Hong Kong and Ottawa. Urgent cases, and those that require local support, are passed to posts across eight consular regions.

The number and location of our consular posts is based on the number of British nationals travelling and living overseas, and the number and complexity of consular cases. The number of posts in each region is as follows:

Eastern Europe & Central North-Eastern Asia 25
Europe North 26
Europe South 36
Latin America 18
Middle East, North Africa & South Asia 37
North America & Caribbean 23
South East Asia Pacific 23
Sub-Saharan Africa 37

In support of these posts there are 217 Honorary Consuls operating in 86 countries.