Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the number of (a) UK Citizens and (b) their dependents, who remain in Afghanistan.

Regular commercial flights to and from Afghanistan have resumed, simplifying travel to and from the country. The FCDO continues to advise against all travel to Afghanistan. However, British people are choosing to travel to Afghanistan, against FCDO travel advice, and they are able to leave by commercial means. It remains very difficult to give an exact figure of how many British nationals or their dependents are in Afghanistan. The situation is fluid with British nationals entering and leaving all the time. There are currently no British consular officials in Afghanistan and our ability to provide consular assistance in Afghanistan is severely limited. We have consular teams available in neighbouring countries who are able to offer limited remote consular support.