Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether the Chagos Conservation Trust has returned any unspent funds that were provided by his Department for the purposes of the Chagossian Outreach Programme; and how much in total (a) was and (b) remains to be provided for that programme.

The Chagos Environmental Outreach Project (later named Connect Chagos) ran from March 2012 to December 2015. In total just over £330,000 was provided by the British Indian Ocean Territory Administration to the Chagos Conservation Trust and Zoological Society for London for the delivery of the programme. At the end of the programme, an underspend of £16,745 was reported. The British Indian Ocean Territory Administration is in discussions with the Chagos Conservation Trust about options for the use of this underspend. No additional funding remains to be provided.