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 prioritise water, sanitation and hygiene in the overseas development budget.

The Government is taking steps to prioritise water, sanitation and hygiene in the overseas aid budget. The UK is on track to help over 60 million people gain access to a water supply or basic sanitation by the end of 2020. This builds on the achievement of our earlier targets which involved reaching 64.7 million people with water or sanitation by 2015. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has funded new programmes across a wide range of countries, including partnership with the private sector, on improving hand hygiene to help tackle COVID-19. We will look to build on this experience in the COVID-19 recovery phase.