Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on 10 July (HC13240), what are the current overseas posts and locations classified as qualifying hardship posts for the purpose of additional journeys for staff posted overseas.

Given the large number of posts and locations in the scope of the Noble Lord's question, I will arrange for a list to be placed in the library, containing details of: (a) the 150 locations classified as qualifying hardship posts for the purpose of additional journeys for staff posted overseas, at the time that the previous government left office in July 2024; and (b) the six locations that have subsequently been removed from that list.

The Noble Lord will see from the aforementioned list that these arrangements are not new, and indeed have applied consistently under successive governments for a number of decades.

Below, in reference to HL2091 (tabled on 14 July 2026), is a list of the 150 locations worldwide, which – at the end of the previous government’s term in office in July 2024 – were classified as qualifying ‘hardship’ posts for the purpose of additional journeys for staff posted overseas. In the subsequent two years, up to July 2026, six locations have been removed from the qualifying list: Bamako, Buenos Aires, Panama City, Pyongyang, Santiago and Sarajevo.

Abidjan

Abu Dhabi

Abuja

Accra

Adamstown

Addis Ababa

Ahmedabad

Algiers

Al-Khobar

Almaty

Amman

Ankara

Antananarivo

Apia

Ascension Island

Ashgabat

Asmara

Astana

Asuncion

Baku

Bali

Bamako

Bandar Seri Begawan

Bangkok

Banjul

Beijing

Beirut

Belmopan

Bengaluru

Bishkek

Bogota

Brades

Brasilia

Buenos Aires

Bujumbura

Cairo

Cape Town

Caracas

Casablanca

Castries

Chandigarh

Chennai

Chisinau

Chongqing

Colombo

Conakry

Dakar

Dar Es Salaam

Dhaka

Djibouti

Doha

Dubai

Dushanbe

Freetown

Gaborone

Georgetown

Grand Turk

Guangzhou

Guatemala City

Hanoi

Harare

Havana

Ho Chi Minh City

Honiara

Hyderabad

Islamabad

Istanbul

Jakarta

Jakarta (ASEAN)

Jamestown

Jeddah

Jerusalem

Johannesburg

Kampala

Karachi

Kathmandu

Khartoum

Kigali

Kingston

Kingstown

Kinshasa

Kolkata

Kuala Lumpur

Kuwait

La Paz

Lagos

Lahore

Lilongwe

Lima

Luanda

Lusaka

Male

Manama

Manila

Maputo

Maseru

Mbabane

Mexico City

Minsk

Monrovia

Monterrey

Moscow

Mumbai

Muscat

Nairobi

N'Djamena

Nassau

New Delhi

Niamey

Nouakchott

Nuku'alofa

Panama City

Phnom Penh

Port au Prince

Port Moresby

Port of Spain

Port Vila

Pretoria

Pristina

Pyongyang

Quito

Rabat

Rio de Janeiro

Riyadh

San Jose

San Salvador

Santiago

Santo Domingo

Sao Paulo

Sarajevo

Shanghai

St George's

St John's

Stanley

Suva

Tashkent

Tehran

Tel Aviv

Tirana

Tristan da Cunha

Tunis

Ulaanbaatar

Victoria

Vientiane

Windhoek

Wuhan

Yangon

Yaounde

Yekaterinburg

Yerevan

In the vast majority of cases, the locations listed above have been classified as qualifying ‘hardship’ posts since that system of classification – and accompanying staff allowances – were introduced more than three decades ago. Assessments of ‘hardship’ take into account a number of factors that apply irrespective of the financial wealth and standard of living in each post, but which may mean that members of staff are required to take additional respite breaks for the benefit of their physical or mental health, in locations where – for example – there are high levels of air pollution (e.g. New Delhi or Beijing), high levels of crime (e.g. Port of Spain or Pretoria), or regular and ongoing security threats (e.g. Tel Aviv or Riyadh).