Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of the UK's withdrawal of funding to the United Nations Population Fund on (a) maternal and infant mortality rates and (b) reproductive health worldwide.

The seismic impact of the pandemic on the UK economy has forced us to make tough but necessary decisions, including temporarily reducing the amount we spend on foreign aid.

The UK's aid budget has been allocated in accordance with our key strategic priorities and after a cross-government review of how we spend ODA. The Foreign Secretary has agreed he will focus our investment and expertise where the UK can make the most difference and achieve maximum impact. We are now working with partners to help them assess and manage the impact of UK funding reductions on individual programmes and we will share further details on this in due course. In the meantime, let me reassure you that the UK remains a proud partner to UNFPA and a global champion of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

We will maintain a broad range of sexual and reproductive health and rights programmes including in family planning. We will do this through programmes such as the Global Financing Facility, Reproductive Health Supplies and our support to FP2030.