Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the Answer of 13 June 2023 to Question 186930 on Developing Countries: Debts Written Off, what progress his Department has made on introducing debt relief measures for developing countries.

The UK has provided over £2 billion in debt relief through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative and continues to provide roughly £190 million a year to compensate the Multilateral Development Banks for forgone debt repayments. In response to the COVID pandemic, the UK supported the Debt Service Suspension Initiative and suspended UK debt repayment from April 2020 to December 2021. Collectively $12.9 billion of repayments were suspended from almost 50 countries. Additionally, the UK provided £150 million towards IMF debt repayment relief through the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust.

The UK plays a leadership role in international discussions on developing country debt which we monitor closely with His Majesties Treasury. As set out in the White Paper on International Development, published last November - through our membership of the Paris Club, G20, and the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable we are pushing for improvements to the global debt architecture and using our position in official creditor committees to help return countries to debt sustainability where necessary.

The UK is also leading contractual debt innovations, notably Climate Resilient Debt Clauses (CRDCs) that pause debt repayments when a natural disaster hits. UK Export Finance (UKEF) was the first export credit agency globally to offer these, and the Government is pressing for all creditors to offer these in loans - most recently co-hosting a workshop on CRDCs at COP28 and securing several Multilateral Development Banks and other countries to offer these.