(West Bromwich East)
(Con) [V]: Around 100 of my West Bromwich East constituents are
currently stuck in Indiaduring this pandemic,
which is why I very much welcome the Government’s bold commitment
to work with our international partners and the airlines to bring
back our British nationals. Could my right hon. Friend provide the
House with an update on the progress of this scheme? [901936]
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and
First Secretary of State ():
I thank my hon. Friend. Of course, she will know that, as Foreign
Secretary, I have been working flat out with the Foreign Office
and our international network on that. It is worth saying that we
have worked with foreign Governments and the airlines to return
those stranded, and we have returned over 1 million British
nationals on commercial flights. I am sure that my hon. Friend
will understand that the scale of that operation is incredible
and unprecedented. We have also introduced a special charter
arrangement: we have put in £75 million and have a whole range of
international or UK airlines signed up to it, and we have
returned over 10,000 on charter flights. In fact, in the last few
weeks, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has chartered 52
flights to get more than 10,000 people back from 16 different
countries, including nearly 5,000 from India
which she has mentioned. We have confirmed further flights from
several countries in the next few days, including
India Pakistan and Bangladesh.
