Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he plans to take to increase the involvement of British embassies in humanitarian work as part of the merger if the Department for International Development with his Department.

Merging the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DFID) will bring together the best of what we do in development and diplomacy. As the world becomes ever more complex, we need single cross-government strategies implemented on the ground by the Ambassador or High Commissioner heading all of HMG's work in-country. There is already very close co-ordination between the DFID's provision of life-saving humanitarian aid and the FCO's work to enable humanitarian responses politically and support humanitarian processes, and we expect this to continue and improve in the new structure.