Peter Grant – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Peter Grant on 2015-10-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, on how many occasions officials of his Department have contacted representatives of a foreign government to ask for an account of private meetings or discussions held between representatives of that government and Scottish Government Ministers in each of the last five years.

Mr David Lidington

Foreign policy is reserved to the UK Government. The UK Government recognises the interests of the devolved administrations (DAs) in international policy which touches upon devolved areas. Under the framework of the relevant Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and concordats, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) frequently supports overseas visits by DAs ministers and officials. FCO officials generally attend such meetings overseas and expect the DAs to provide details of any international meetings at which FCO officials were not present. The FCO maintains a broad overview of bilateral relations with all countries.