Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to his oral statement of 26 November 2020, Official Report, column 1018 on Official Development Assistance, whether his Department has a timescale for returning to spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on Official Development Assistance.

The UK economy is undergoing the worst contraction for 3 decades. Against this backdrop, we have been forced to make hard choices, including temporarily reducing the ODA target from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5%. We remain a world leading donor, and will spend over £10 billion of ODA this year. We intend to return to the 0.7 per cent target when the fiscal situation allows.