Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the Third Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Flying Home: The FCO’s consular response to the COVID-19 pandemic, HC 643, what steps he has taken to improve the (a) quantity and (b) quality of his Department's communications to UK citizens abroad during times of crisis.

We are committed to maintaining and improving the resilience and flexibility of our communications systems during times of crisis. We have increased the capacity and capability in our Consular Contact Centre to ensure greater resilience for surges in demand. We also have a new surge call handling capacity: a cadre drawn from across the FCDO in the UK and in our posts abroad which, in a crisis, will augment our Consular Contact Centre teams. We have also extended the channels by which British nationals can contact us at any time of day or night. For example, during the COVID-19 response, we started providing written answers 24/7 through a dedicated web form on GOV.UK and answering messages posted on the FCDO's Travel Advice social media channels.

We continue to review how we can reach British nationals and how they can reach us as easily as possible. This includes testing and piloting web chat and messaging services such as WhatsApp, as well as integrating our existing channels of phone and sending messages by web form and through social media. We are also exploring how a subscription service would be used, both in a crisis and otherwise, to send messages directly to British nationals who ask for information, using the channel and tool they prefer. We have also reviewed communications for future repatriations operations and developed clear plans to follow if required.