Recommendation 1

HM Government Acknowledged

The FAC report rightly highlights the significant challenges that COVID-19 presented and we are grateful that it acknowledges the efforts of staff around the world, noting that “many went above and beyond to deliver admirable service in extremely difficult circumstances” and “worked around the clock and did an excellent job helping UK citizens get home”. The scale of our response was huge. As noted above, the charter operation alone brought over 38,000 people back to the UK, on 186 flights, from 57 different countries and territories. MOD flights helped hundreds more get home from the furthest-flung locations. And more than 19,000 British passengers from 60 cruise ships were successfully disembarked, including 1,500 people on direct or supported charters, with the assistance of a dedicated consular ‘cruise ships’ team. Teams in country also worked around the clock to keep hubs and transit routes open, allowing British nationals to access flights. Since January we estimate that this enabled over 1.3 million people to return to the UK via commercial routes. Beyond HMG’s work with governments and airlines to keep commercial flights running, we estimate that over 132,000 of these returned on commercial flights that were directly assisted by HMG, most frequently our consular staff. As such, the Government does not believe the report fully represents how much we did, or how quickly. Our response included early repatriation flights from China in January and February, work with cruise companies to bring back passengers in February and March, and responding to the crisis in Peru at the same time as others countries. These operations brought back several thousand British nationals. commercial airlines flying and routes open. As noted above, this allowed 1.3 million people to return to the UK. Attempting this mostly through charters or by charters alone would have required the Government to organise thousands of flights. Instead we worked at pace with airlines to bring people back. This was the most efficient and effective approach: it was faster, and allowed us to focus charters on those gaps that needed government intervention. It also reflected our assessment that undercutting commercial airlines threatened routes, exacerbating the problems faced by British nationals around the world. An example of the success of the Government’s actions is that, by 30 March, the Foreign Secretary had already spoken to over 20 of his counterparts to support the work and the FCDO had helped hundreds of thousands of British nationals to return including: 150,000 from Spain, 5,000 from Cyprus and 8,500 from Morocco. While the report notes the nature and scale of the challenge faced earlier this year, it does not fully recognise the uncertain situation in which British diplomatic missions were operating. Measures ranging from a total shut down of domestic transport through to closure of international air space were introduced in many countries, often with little notice. As noted above, the former meant that, in some countries, to repatriate any British traveller required complex ground operations before a flight was even available, while the latter was made even more difficult to manage by the varied shut down of the international transport network. Our response required redeploying thousands of FCDO and other UK government staff in the UK and overseas, while developing wholly new ways of working, mainly from home, to deliver a new approach to consular support and repatriations at pace. Those staff did extraordinary things. Two examples are: • China (Wuhan): staff who were trapped by the lockdown set up a muster point outside the airport and conducted checks for more than 8 hours to support British travellers, despite limited knowledge about potential risks. • India: a group of 42 students and teachers from an international school, stranded in the Western Ghats region, negotiated a tough 8-hour journey across state borders to meet an FCDO staff member, who had driven 36 hours and 2,000km from Chennai to Kerala to meet the group and hand-deliver an emergency travel document to allow them to fly. But the FCDO recognises the scale of concern from British nationals overseas set out in the FAC report, particularly in the second half of March and early April. The points raised in the report are consistent with feedback that the FCDO received over the same period from MPs and directly from affected British people and their families. We sought to respond to concerns and ensure those British nationals who were temporarily overseas and wished to return to the UK were able to do so. A specific crisis operation for Peru was launched on 21 March, with the larger charter flight operation commencing on 30 March and running through to the most recent flight on 12 June. response to any future situations. The FCDO has reviewed its performance and operating model as a whole, with a dedicated Repatriation Taskforce working alongside reinforced consular an