Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of OECD development assistance committee rules on development assistance.

The Official Development Assistance (ODA) rules enable a broad range of activities to be defined as ODA and the UK uses the full scope of the rules to address evolving development challenges. The UK has led the way in working with others to modernise the rules.

We are looking at how our aid budget can be used most effectively in our national interest through the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.