Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the effect of the reduction in the Official Development Assistance on the UK’s ambition to support research to tackle (a) climate change, (b) biodiversity loss and other global challenges.

The Government remains committed to international development and will continue to provide £10 billion of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2021-22to fight poverty, tackle climate change and improve global health.

The Government’s commitment to research and innovation is clearly demonstrated through the recently published R&D Roadmap, and the £400m uplift in R&D spending announced in the Spending Review. International collaboration is a central feature of a healthy and productive R&D sector.

We are committed to doubling UK’s International Climate Finance (ICF) to £11.6bn in the years 2021-2025. Our ICF helps to reduce deforestation and carbon emissions, for instance through our £200m+ investment to support green recovery across Africa, Asia and Latin America since June 2020.