HL Deb 22 June 2004 vol 662 cc53-4WS
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean)

In his Statement to the other place on 1 April (Official Report, col. 1769), my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary (Mr Jack Straw) presented the review of FCO travel advice (Cm 6158), and invited comments from all quarters on its conclusions and recommendations. A number of associations, companies and individuals, many but not all from within the travel industry, responded to this invitation. The Foreign Secretary held a roundtable on 27 May with key stakeholders to discuss further their views on our travel advice service and how it might be improved. We are now in a position to announce to Parliament the revisions which will be made.

We have discussed at length the difficult question of how we can best inform the public about the threat from terrorism in individual countries. As the Foreign Secretary said in his Statement of 1 April, our travel advice needs to strike a balance between danger and disruption: making public safety its prime concern while minimising the disruption which terrorists want to cause. Our advice must inform people of the threat from terrorism. When the threat is acute, it will inevitably lead to some disruption in travel in the interests of public safety. But at the same time we must make sure we do not do the terrorists' work for them by causing too much of the disruption which they seek.

We have therefore decided that in future, in the case of intelligence-based terrorist threats, we shall advise against travel only in situations of extreme and imminent danger—if the terrorist threat is sufficiently specific, large-scale or endemic to affect British nationals severely (Option E on page 22 of the review). The factors which we shall consider in reaching this judgment will include the specificity and credibility of the intelligence information, the recent history of terrorist incidents in the area, the likelihood that the threat could affect British nationals, and the level of protection from the threat available to British nationals. One reason for making this change of emphasis is to maintain the credibility of our advice. We are concerned that many people continue to travel despite our warnings against all but essential travel. The public will be better served if such warnings are used more sparingly. I should add that we shall continue to prescribe against travel in cases of non-terrorist threats (coups, civil unrest, natural disasters) on the same basis as before.

We have also decided to accept the recommendation on page 28 of the review to establish a standing advisory council of travel advice users. Details of membership, timing and agenda are still to be finalised, but the council would bring together representatives of the travel and insurance industries, NGOs and others to advise on issues arising from travel advice and its implementation. It would not be consulted on individual travel advice changes, which would continue to be the responsibility of officials and, ultimately, myself.

We have also asked officials to implement a number of recommendations from the review, and from the subsequent consultation, to make the travel advice pages clearer and easier to use. Although we have achieved considerably greater clarity over the past year, further refinements have been suggested to ensure that those who consult the FCO website or the telephone call centre take away the key points.

One fact that has emerged clearly from the review is that, while our travel advice service is heavily used, many different types of customer use it for widely varied purposes. Inevitably, we cannot satisfy all the demands, some of which are mutually exclusive, but I am confident that the adjustments outlined above will improve the overall quality of service and level of customer satisfaction.