Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Funding

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has mentioned the ODA budget. We have an excellent record of leveraging the ODA for the broader priorities of Her Majesty’s Government, not just the important role of poverty alleviation but the other areas to which the noble Lord has drawn attention.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, when the Ukraine crisis broke out, the FCO really felt its lack of expertise on Russia. If the FCO’s staff is cut further, expertise to analyse what is happening at the moment in countries in other very sensitive areas such as Central Asia, the North Caucasus and the Middle East will be in short supply. Do the Government take that into account when considering whether they can further cut the FCO both at home and abroad?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I always take careful note of what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has to say, due to his previous role in the department. Just to go into the number of posts, yes we have fewer posts than we had 10 years ago. However, since 2010 we have not closed any sovereign posts and we have opened or upgraded 18 posts under the network shift programme and strategic reprioritisation exercises, as well as deploying around 300 extra front-line staff in more than 30 countries.