Recommendation 12

HM Government · verbatim extract Acknowledged

The Government partially agrees with the Committee. Given the importance of building enduring partnerships based on patient diplomacy, diplomatic posts are essential to understanding the local context and inform UK decision-making in the long-term. The Government has already increased its diplomatic presence in the region. We have doubled the number of British High Commissions across the Pacific Island Countries over the past four years. The UK now has six High Commissions in the Pacific including: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu. In 2019, the UK also opened the UK Mission to ASEAN to implement strengthened UK-ASEAN engagement and the UK High Commission to the Maldives. In addition, we have increased resourcing in a number of key regional Missions including Canberra, Jakarta, and Singapore. We have also established a Pacific Development Unit (PDU), led from the High Commission in Canberra. Working with new development expertise based in Fiji and New Zealand, the PDU is charged with driving forward development partnerships across the Pacific region. Our resource commitment to the region is not just in our sovereign posts. The Indo-Pacific is a whole of government effort requiring resource alignment across departments. For instance on defence, since 2021, the Government has increased our persistent presence in the region, deploying two Offshore Patrol Vessels to the Indo-Pacific on a permanent basis, deployed the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Carrier Strike Group in 2021, the Littoral Response Group will deploy into the region in 2024 and the UK will deploy another Carrier Strike Group to the region in 2025. In addition, we have expanded our network of Defence Attachés and regional defence staff in the Indo-Pacific – including establishing resident Defence Attachés in Manila in the Philippines and Suba in Fiji - to deepen our understanding and influence in over 20 countries. We have also expanded our regional teams, increasing the size and scope of British Defence Staff South-East Asia in Singapore and establishing the new British Defence Staff Oceania in Australia. On science and technology, the Indo-Pacific region is essential to maintaining the UK’s scientific base, supporting the competitive advantage of our innovative businesses whilst addressing shared opportunities and threats. That is why the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have expanded the UK’s Science and Innovation Network in region from 30 posts in 2021/22 to 40 in 2023/24, strengthening the UK’s ability to build partnerships across this dynamic region. DBT is the second largest department on the FCDO’s overseas platform overall (10%) after the FCDO and has increased spending on the region since 2021, largely due to the full roll out of the Digital Trade Network. The FCDO publishes data on expenditure per Director General area and the relative size of overseas missions in its Annual Report.