Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many consular staff have been employed in the Americas in each year since 2010.

For each of the last five financial years, the number of consular staff employed in the Americas has remained in the 90 to 100 bracket. This includes around 10 staff in our Contact Centre in Ottawa which, alongside our Contact Centre in Malaga, Spain, provides first contact consular support worldwide. The majority of the total are locally-engaged staff, with UK-based staff numbering fewer than 10.