Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to improve the transparency of the trade-related aspects of the Prosperity Fund.

I am replying as Chair of the National Security Council Sub Committee on the Cross Government Funds, which provides Ministerial oversight of the Prosperity Fund. We are committed to achieving an Aid Transparency Index (IATI) rating of “good” for the Prosperity Fund by 2020, as outlined in the 2015 UK Aid Strategy available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/cross-government-prosperity-fund-programmes

The Fund can be accessed on GOV.UK since January 2016, and is kept updated along with quarterly core data and fully approved business cases. We published the Fund’s first annual report in December 2017 and will publish the second before the end of the year.