Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what programmes her Department has contributed to from the £300 million it allocated to eradicate polio.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The United Kingdom remains fully committed to global polio eradication and has pledged £300 million to support the Global Polio Eradication Initiative for 2013 to 2019. Of the £300 million, £270 million is directed to the World Health Organisation, which hosts the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. £30 million is allocated to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to support its role in the global introduction of the Inactivated Polio Vaccine, a key step in the path to eradication.
As the third largest contributor towards global polio eradication, UK support has played a crucial role in the more than 99% decrease in polio cases since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to ensure that the additional £40 million of aid her Department allocated in June 2015 to Yemen benefits its intended recipients.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
To ensure UK aid reaches its intended recipients, we work with trusted and impartial actors such as UN agencies and NGOs who have a strong track record of prioritising assistance to those most in need, and delivering and monitoring assistance in difficult and dangerous places. We operate a zero tolerance approach to fraud and corruption and have an independent monitoring programme to provide assurance on what we are delivering.
Since the start of the crisis in Yemen, UK aid has assisted at least 700,000 people directly affected by the conflict including vulnerable host communities, internally displaced people and migrants. We have provided critical support for healthcare, malnutrition, water and sanitation, protection and shelter. We have also continued to strengthen and protect local capacity and community assets from further shocks by providing agricultural and other livelihoods assistance.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, on what grounds UK aid is given to countries on the EU Commission tax haven blacklist.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
DFID uses a range of criteria to inform how we allocate aid across countries. These criteria include, for example, current and projected poverty levels in the country, the country’s ability to self-finance its development (e.g. through domestic taxation), and the likely effectiveness of UK aid.
A number of EU member states maintain lists of jurisdictions for tax purposes against criteria concerning tax transparency and/or the prevailing tax rate. The EU does not maintain a blacklist; however a list of 30 jurisdictions that featured on 10 or more member state lists was compiled and then superseded by a recent European Commission update.
This update included UK Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories which had the UK’s signature of the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters extended to them in 2014. The updated individual member state lists can be found at: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/gen_info/good_governance_matters/lists_of_countries/.
Of the 30 jurisdictions named in the original list, 14 received UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2013 (the most recent year for which consolidated figures are available). Of these 14, only three (Liberia, Montserrat and Vanuatu) received ODA from DFID for development and humanitarian assistance in that year. Details of funding amounts to these 14 jurisdictions can be found at the Statistics on International Development 2014 page of the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many countries on the EU Commission tax haven blacklist, or identified as zero tax jurisdictions, received UK aid in financial years 2013-14 and 2014-15.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
DFID uses a range of criteria to inform how we allocate aid across countries. These criteria include, for example, current and projected poverty levels in the country, the country’s ability to self-finance its development (e.g. through domestic taxation), and the likely effectiveness of UK aid.
A number of EU member states maintain lists of jurisdictions for tax purposes against criteria concerning tax transparency and/or the prevailing tax rate. The EU does not maintain a blacklist; however a list of 30 jurisdictions that featured on 10 or more member state lists was compiled and then superseded by a recent European Commission update.
This update included UK Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories which had the UK’s signature of the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters extended to them in 2014. The updated individual member state lists can be found at: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/gen_info/good_governance_matters/lists_of_countries/.
Of the 30 jurisdictions named in the original list, 14 received UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2013 (the most recent year for which consolidated figures are available). Of these 14, only three (Liberia, Montserrat and Vanuatu) received ODA from DFID for development and humanitarian assistance in that year. Details of funding amounts to these 14 jurisdictions can be found at the Statistics on International Development 2014 page of the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much UK aid was provided to countries on the EU Commission tax haven blacklist or identified as zero tax jurisdictions in the financial years 2013-14 and 2014-15.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
DFID uses a range of criteria to inform how we allocate aid across countries. These criteria include, for example, current and projected poverty levels in the country, the country’s ability to self-finance its development (e.g. through domestic taxation), and the likely effectiveness of UK aid.
A number of EU member states maintain lists of jurisdictions for tax purposes against criteria concerning tax transparency and/or the prevailing tax rate. The EU does not maintain a blacklist; however a list of 30 jurisdictions that featured on 10 or more member state lists was compiled and then superseded by a recent European Commission update.
This update included UK Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories which had the UK’s signature of the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters extended to them in 2014. The updated individual member state lists can be found at: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/gen_info/good_governance_matters/lists_of_countries/.
Of the 30 jurisdictions named in the original list, 14 received UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2013 (the most recent year for which consolidated figures are available). Of these 14, only three (Liberia, Montserrat and Vanuatu) received ODA from DFID for development and humanitarian assistance in that year. Details of funding amounts to these 14 jurisdictions can be found at the Statistics on International Development 2014 page of the gov.uk website.