Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to his Department's guidance last updated on 7 April 2020, Financial assistance abroad, if he will provide additional assistance to UK citizens required to pay higher airline fees to return to the UK from overseas as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
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.
We hope most travellers will be able to claim their costs from their travel insurance but for those British nationals that cannot afford the cost of a flight to return, and have no other funding options, they may be eligible for financial support through an emergency loan from public funds.
To help more British nationals who need a loan return to the UK during the coronavirus pandemic, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has streamlined the process for emergency loans, and begun working with a commercial travel agency (Corporate Travel Management or CTM) to ensure loan recipients' have travel arrangements in place to return home.
More details can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-assistance-abroad/financial-assistance-abroad#if-you-need-financial-help-abroad.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what response he plans to make to the statement of the President of Argentina on 2 April that the UK was keeping NATO's most powerful armed bases in the Falklands and that this included a nuclear attack submarine.
Answered by Lord Swire
The British Ambassador in Buenos Aires has conveyed our disappointment to the Argentine Deputy Foreign Minister that the President of Argentina once again repeated her unfounded claims about the UK military presence in the South Atlantic on the very anniversary of Argentina's illegal invasion of the Falkland Islands which tragically led to so many deaths on both sides. Claims that the Falklands is a “military nuclear base for NATO in the South Atlantic”, or represents a military threat to the region are obviously untrue: The UK's military presence on the Falkland Islands is purely defensive in nature and the number of UK forces has declined to the minimum necessary to defend the Islands.
With regard to nuclear weapons, the UK's position is clear. The United Kingdom ratified the protocols to the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone covering Latin America and the Caribbean (the Treaty of Tlatelolco) in 1969, and it fully respects these obligations. The UK position on its deterrent is unambiguous and well known: the UK will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states parties to, and in compliance with, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.