Spending Review – Foreign Office

At a billion pounds a year our Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is perhaps the ultimate example of the U.K.’s deployment of what is sometimes now referred to as’soft power’. The settlement protects the budget of the FCO in real terms in order that it can maintain the U.K.’s global network of diplomatic posts which promote our interests around the World. New embassies will open in Abuja and Budapest. The U.K.’s diplomatic network consists of more than 250 posts and missions in over 150 countries and territories across the globe.