§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what guidance he has issued to his Department's EU Press Rebuttal Unit; what is its cost in the current financial year; how many staff are assigned to it; and how many rebuttals it has issued to date. [112424]
§ Mr. VazI have decided to rebut press articles which contain factual inaccuracies about Government policy towards Europe or our membership of the EU. This entails no extra costs to the FCO budget. There are no dedicated FCO staff assigned to this task. Since the beginning of the year, I have written 17 rebuttals, of which seven have been published.