Iain McKenzie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Iain McKenzie on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what extra consular assistance his Department will provide for British citizens in Brazil attending the World Cup.

Mark Simmonds

During the World Cup, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office will have a comprehensive consular plan in place to assist any British nationals that require our assistance. This includes a Consular Operations Centre in Rio de Janeiro on the day preceding, the day of and the day following all England games, a dedicated consular telephone number (which has been advertised on our travel advice and in the Football Supporters Federation’s tournament and match day programmes), a team of consular officers at every England game and consular officers from around the region and Portugal on standby to assist the Brazil network with any consular surges. We will also have a rapid deployment team from the Americas region on standby should they be required.

In the build up to the World Cup we have run a comprehensive travel advice campaign called ‘Be on the Ball’ that has featured Twitter Q&A sessions, attendance at fans forums in London, media interviews in printed and video forms. We have also run a number of exercises across the Brazil network so that consular officials are prepared should we need to assist British nationals in the case of major incidents.

I visited Sao Paulo on 4 June to view preparations which the Foreign & Commonwealth Office is making to give consular assistance during the World Cup. I also met the Deputy Mayor of Sao Paulo to discuss the local preparations for the tournament.

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office has also been working with the Football Association, UK Football Policing Unit, Brazilian local authorities and other stakeholders on contingency and crisis planning.