Following the tsunami in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) launched its largest ever operation to provide consular assistance to British nationals. The FCO provided an immediate and targeted response, with excellent commitment from staff, but given the sheer scale of the incident—triggered by the second largest earthquake on record—and the number of countries affected, FCO resources were stretched. In a relatively small number of cases, British nationals did not receive the level of service that we would normally have wished to provide.

During February and March 2005, the FCO carried out an internal review of our consular response. The emerging findings of this review were published as part of the FCO's memorandum to the Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Committee on 9 March 2005. The Committee made copies of the memorandum available to all Members of Parliament. In the debate following my statement to the House of Commons on 22 March concerning the tsunami, I undertook to make the final conclusions of the internal review known to the House.

The conclusions of the internal review are set out in the form of a short summary of findings and a list of urgent and other recommendations copies of which I have today arranged to be placed in the Library of the House.

The recommendations are both for the consular directorate in London and for our posts overseas. The purpose of the internal review was to examine the FCO's overall response to the tsunami and identify those areas where better structures, equipment or preparation would have helped us to react more effectively. The review focused on the immediate response to the tsunami and dealt with the work of the FCO only and not of other Government Departments. The National Audit Office is currently examining the overall governmental response to the tsunami crisis, including the role of the FCO, in their review of consular services, due to be published by the end of the year.