To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to the Answer of 16 March 2009, Official Report, columns 843-44W, on departmental public expenditure, from which budgets the additional funds required by overseas posts to maintain the purchasing power of their local budgets in 2008-09 and 2009-10 will be drawn; and if he will make a statement. (267732)

The additional funds required by overseas posts to maintain the purchasing power, are allocated from the overall Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s budget and supplemented by the benefits of forward purchase of foreign currencies.