Mr Hamish Falconer

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for securing the debate. I send my condolences to Cathy and to the whole family for the tragic loss of Hudson in Ecuador. I know how difficult it must be, and my thoughts are with them. I am grateful, too, for the contributions of other hon. Members, and I shall try to respond to the points that have been made. I know that some of those contributions are informed by personal and painful experience. I am the Minister with consular responsibilities for British nationals overseas, so I hope hon. Members will forgive me if my speech focuses on the overseas elements of the debate. We have taken careful note of the points made for other Departments, including the Northern Ireland Office, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. My officials will seek answers for hon. Members on the more detailed questions that I am unable to answer today. Supporting British nationals abroad is clearly a key priority for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Most British people live or travel abroad without incident or needing to seek consular assistance. When an incident does occur, they naturally and understandably ask whether it was preventable. If it was not, what might have made it more bearable? Let me say a few words on how the Government are acting to help British nationals in need abroad. I will begin by setting out our approach to travel advice, the goal of which is to help British nationals to make better informed decisions about international travel. Their safety is always our top priority, and our advice is based on objective assessments of the risks, based on inputs from multiple sources. That includes our own embassies, foreign Governments, and, where relevant, intelligence services. On carbon monoxide poisoning specifically, as the House will be aware, building, fire and gas safety standards abroad do not always match those in the UK, as the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) identified. Since the Foreign Office lacks in-house expertise on building safety, we share information from expert organisations, such as Energy UK, in some of our travel advice. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, for some countries, such as China and Nepal, where carbon monoxide poisoning is a higher risk, we include specific information on that in our travel advice, based on local reports and consular case trends. I recognise the questions asked by the hon. Member for Romford about trends; it is difficult to determine those on the basis of the information available to the Foreign Office. Last year, sadly, 4,000 British nationals lost their lives overseas, and we believe that at least two of those were as a consequence of carbon monoxide poisoning. However, as many hon. Members have identified, we cannot be sure of what we do not know. Wherever cases are raised, as with the tragic case raised by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, my officials and I are available. If there is uncertainty about the cause of death and further support is required from the Foreign Office, we stand available to provide that. But as I think the hon. Member identified, ultimately, our advice is there to guide people, not to set rules that people must abide by. It is intended as just one source of information to help British people to make informed decisions about where and how they travel. I acknowledge what the hon. Member for Surrey Heath said about the impact of our advice. I assure the House that we always consider the arguments for changes to travel advice on their merits. We must make judgments, try to consider all risks proportionately, and consider the best way to ensure that advice is presented to travellers.