European External Action Service

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I thank the noble Lord for his comment. I can tell noble Lords with utter confidence that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget will rise from £1.2 billion in 2017-18 to £1.24 billion in 2019-20.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, presumably the secondees will be guaranteed reinstatement in the Foreign Office with all due emoluments and so on. For those directly employed in the EU, are there any precedents, as the noble Baroness seemed to indicate, for the EU to employ non-EU nationals within its external service?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

Secondments provide a platform to demonstrate the UK’s expertise and to foster and develop positive UK-EU working relations. Any organisation, whether that is in government or a corporate company, would want to keep the expertise of people it will need. I cannot give the noble Lord that assurance here and now, but I will certainly go away and find out in order that I can respond to him.