Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what programmes he has put in place to support the Government's Anti Corruption Strategy using Official Development Assistance in financial year (a) 2020-21 and (b) 2021-22; and how much funding has been allocated to those programmes.

The last published Statistics on International Development report that the UK spent £57,084,711 of Official Development Assistance on Anti-Corruption in 2019, across a wide range of programmes in support of the UK's Anti-Corruption Strategy. In addition, some ODA programmes focussing on other areas contributed to reducing corruption, including programmes to improve public sector financial management systems and scrutiny by audit and civil society bodies. Equivalent statistics for 2020 are expected to be published in September 2021.

As announced last year, the impact of the global pandemic on the UK economy has forced us to take the tough but necessary decision to reduce temporarily how much we spend on Official Development Assistance (ODA). The UK will remain a world-leading donor, spending over £10 billion in 21/22. No decisions on sectoral budgets have been made yet. The Foreign Secretary has set out seven core priorities for the UK's aid budget this year, including defending open societies. The recently published Integrated Review sets out the UK Government's commitment to fight corruption and illicit finance as significant threats to democratic values and open societies around the world.