South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon has called on British Consulates to recover the costs involved in helping people who get into difficulty abroad because of their own bad behaviour.

Mr Bacon was speaking as the Commons public accounts committee published its report into the consular services offered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

The report finds that consular officials are increasingly asked to help a reckless minority of British people abroad whose own bad behaviour has landed them in trouble. Consular staff have the discretion to charge a call-out fee of £84.50 per hour, but of 84,000 consular assistance cases last year, this fee was charged in only 0.4% of cases.

Mr Bacon, a member of the committee, said:

“Consulates should not be shy about charging a fee to people who are in trouble as a result of their own bad behaviour. Stag parties are a particular problem, as many partygoers turn up at the embassy out-of-hours, drunk, incoherent and lost. It has been known for embassy guards to phone 40 hotels in order to find the Stag’s hotel and send people on their way. These cases usually turn out alright and revellers may laugh about it later, but they generate a heavy workload for consular staff and these costs should be recovered”.

The report also states that the Foreign Office needs to do more to identify those groups who require most assistance and assess how effectively the FCO is influencing their behaviour. The FCO’s online travel advice was accessed 4.9 million times last year, but this accounts for less than 10 per cent of the trips abroad made by British nationals.

Mr Bacon added: “With the World Cup less than two months away, the Foreign Office has little time left to reach those football fans travelling to Germany and needs to step up a gear. However, fans should not leave it all up to the Foreign Office and must make sure they are properly prepared before they travel”.
 

20 April 2006

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		Hear Richard discuss this issue on Radio 4's 'Today' programme

See also:
PAC REPORT: Consular Services to British Nationals
PARLIAMENT: Foreign Office paid for satellite phones scam

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