Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what estimate he has made of the reduction in official development assistance in 2020-21 to date compared with the same date in (a) 2018-19 and (b) 2019-20.

As the Chancellor has set out, like many other nations across the world the UK is experiencing a severe economic downturn as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the expected fall in Gross National Income this year, a package of £2.9 billion in reductions to the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget was agreed by the Prime Minister on 20 July. As normal, there will continue to be adjustments in-year to individual departmental ODA spend to meet the 0.7 per cent target this year. We are taking the tough decision to spend 0.5 per cent of our national income next year on ODA, rather than the usual 0.7 per cent. The Government intends to return to the 0.7 per cent target when the fiscal situation allows. The Statistics for International Development will, as usual, provide a full breakdown of the UK's ODA spend in 2020.