Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to support Türkiye following the earthquakes; how much financial aid he has (a) given and (b) plans to give to Türkiye ; and whether financial aid for that purpose has been reprioritised from other planned projects funded by the Overseas Development Assistance budget.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
As I said in my video-message to the International Donors' Conference on 20 March, UK aid totalling £43.3 million has helped thousands of survivors in Turkey and Syria, of which £15 million has been for aid in Turkey. We provided: search and rescue capability; specially trained dogs, and over 11,000 patients have been treated by UK medical teams. To fund the humanitarian response, underspends across a number of different projects and geographies were re-directed at the end of the financial year. As we move out of the emergency response phase, the UK will continue to stand in solidarity with Turkey and to look at what more we can do to support the longer term recovery effort.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has taken recent steps with his international counterpart to agree multi-year funding settlements for (a) Unitaid and (b) other multilateral organisations.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
I [Minister Mitchell] gave a Written Ministerial Statement [https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-03-30/hcws705] on 30 March setting out indicative figures for FCDO's Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget for 2022-2023 and 2023-2024. These include indicative figures for all multilateral organisations of £3.311 billion in 2022-2023 and £3.974 billion in 2023-2024. Funding settlements are being communicated to multilateral partners, including the health multilaterals and have already been sent to Unitaid.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to fund and promote UK (a) science and innovation and (b) universities through its support to multilateral partnerships.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK's overseas Science & Innovation Network has 129 officers in over 65 locations who identify opportunities to build, support and nurture international collaboration between UK institutions and overseas academia, industry, government, and multilaterals.
UK universities are funded directly by the FCDO in line with government procurement rules, including through open competition. In financial year 2020/21, the latest year for which figures are available, 108 UK research institutions were in receipt of FCDO R&D funding. This funding supports universities and innovators across the whole of the UK to undertake research and form international partnerships.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the table published by his Department entitled Data underlying SID 2021, published on 23 November 2022 as part of the page entitled Statistics on International Development: final UK aid spend 2021, what the (a) project title, (b) channel of delivery and (c) description was of the project with the identifier ACRS_HO funded by £125,679,578 from official development assistance spending from the Home Department; and for what reason that information was described as temporarily removed from the table cited.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
Due to the security situation in Afghanistan and the risk to our delivery partners, the UK adopted the international approach consistent with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee, where all information surrounding channel of delivery, project title and project description was temporarily removed in the data underlying Statistics on International Development (SID). This included official development assistance (ODA) for all activities in which Afghanistan was the "recipient country" or regional programmes in which Afghanistan were involved. FCDO is working to re-publish the non-sensitive data and any updates will be communicated via the Statistics on International Development page on www.gov.uk.
More information on the ACRS scheme can be found on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme page on www.gov.uk.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department takes to help ensure that monasteries receiving British aid though the Myanmar Education Consortium do not engage in (a) hate speech and (b) anti-Muslim propaganda.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Monastic education plays an important role in the wider education sector in Myanmar, often reaching children in poor and conflict-affected communities with no alternative schooling. The Myanmar Education Consortium (MEC) has provided system-strengthening support to selected monastic schools. Any schools receiving support must demonstrate a strong commitment to the inclusive values of the MEC.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what funding his Department is providing for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in financial years (a) 2022-23 and (b) 2023-24.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK has been a leading donor to the Rohingya response in Bangladesh since 2017, providing £345 million in vital humanitarian support. In 2022-23 to date, the UK has provided £15m to the Rohingya response, providing food, water, sanitation, shelter, healthcare and protection services to Rohingya refugees and vulnerable host communities. The UK will continue to work with the UN and the Government of Bangladesh to provide support to the Rohingya whilst they remain in Bangladesh. A decision on the 2023-24 allocation is being finalised.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, when he plans to publish forward-looking budgets by sector for his Department.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The FCDO reports its expenditure by operating segment in accordance with accounting standards. The basis for defining operating segments is consistent with its Director General (DG) areas and as such, these form the operating segments. We will update on planned ODA allocations for this Spending Review period in due course.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much of the £200 million allocated to British International Investment (BII) in 2022-23 has been delivered to date; and how much will be allocated to BII in the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
British International Investment's (BII) investment plans cover the period of its new five-year Strategy 2022-2026. As the sole shareholder, the Government has committed to continue to support BII including through delivery of BII's strategy. We have allocated £289.5 million in 2022/23 to support BII's capital investments. We will ensure that our funding is invested where it will have maximum impact and delivers most value for money. FCDO is currently undertaking a business planning process for future years. No decisions on individual budgets have been taken yet by Ministers. Further details will be provided through the established approval process and meet FCDO transparency requirements.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure the (a) transparency and (b) accountability of development spending while updates to (i) Development Tracker and (ii) International Aid Transparency Initiative are paused during January and February 2023.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The FCDO remains committed to Aid Transparency, which we confirmed in our response to the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) Review of Transparency, published in 2022. The implementation of new systems has required that we pause publication of the FCDO's monthly programme data to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and the Development Tracker (DevTracker) website. These systems must be fully integrated in order for FCDO to resume our regular publication of programme data. As soon as the system changes have been successfully completed and the systems enable effective publication, FCDO will resume publication of new data and documents (within the next four months). This will include publication of historic data and documents for the period of the pause. Other government departments continue to publish throughout this period - and the FCDO has and will continue to publish programme documents to IATI and DevTracker, including business cases, annual reviews and programme completion reports, on a monthly basis for programmes which are already being reported on.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will provide special dispensation to extend the 30 day overseas window for Syrian and Turkish Chevening Scholars who have returned home to be with family and support relief efforts following the earthquakes on 6 February 2023.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Chevening Secretariat contacted all impacted scholars to check on them at what we know is a very difficult time. We offered to support scholars to travel home where there was a compassionate case to do so, for example where they were needed to support close family members.
We have extended the time that these scholars are permitted to spend overseas from 30 to 44 days in line with our compassionate leave policy, and we will consider the case for award interruptions or extensions where scholars are unable to continue their scholarship because of the impact of the earthquake.