Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) level of corruption in Bangladesh and (b) effectiveness of attempts to reduce the level of corruption in that country.

Corruption is a serious problem in Bangladesh. In their latest Corruption Perceptions Index (2016), Transparency International ranked Bangladesh 145 out of 176 countries. Their score has remained consistently poor in recent years. While the Government assesses that Bangladesh's legal framework for addressing corruption is largely in place, enforcement is inadequate. We are working with Bangladesh to strengthen its public financial management and to increase domestic transparency and accountability.