CONSULAR GENERAL'S HOUSE, 2516 PACIFIC AVENUE, SAN FRANCISCO

Early day motion 1011, tabled 3 April 2003 by Derek Wyatt (Labour). Signed by 15 members.

That this House notes that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office spent ú50,000 only last year on a visit from its Estates team to San Francisco to examine the case for selling the Consular General's house, whereupon it was decided it was inappropriate; considers the current visit by the Estates team to San Francisco last week to sell the said house again to be the worst example of opportunism, there being no Her Majesty's Ambassador to Washington DC in situ; reflects upon the ultimatum that the purchase of a replacement house must be done within seven days, the time the Estates team is in the City, and that as a result, and in haste, they have purchased a small house at 12 Presidio Terrace, the subject of a bomb attack by the activists in the 1970s; believes notwithstanding that San Francisco and the Bay Area is the tenth largest economy in the world, the downgrading and downsizing of the Consular General's house proves once again that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is a disaster abroad; notes that 12 Presidio Terrace has a maximum capacity to hold dinners of 14 and thus will no longer be able to introduce visiting honourable Members for Select Committees and the British American Parliamentary Group to local trade associates including the British American Chamber of Commerce, north Californian which is totally opposed to the sale of the current house; and calls on the Secretary of State to intervene to stop this unwise action.

Signatures by party: Labour 6, Liberal Democrat 4, Conservative 3, Plaid Cymru 1, UUP 1.