Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what estimate he has made of the reductions in Official Development Assistance funding to programmes specifically addressing (a) water, sanitation and hygiene, (b) global LGBT rights, (c) gender equality and (d) violence against women and girls in (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23.

The decision to reduce the overall amount we spend on ODA is temporary, the Government will return to 0.7% once the fiscal situation allows and this is confirmed in the Integrated Review. On this specific issues highlighted in the question, the UK remains committed to advancing gender equality with the Gender Equality Act 2014 legally requiring all overseas development funding to meaningfully consider the impact of how it will contribute to reducing gender inequality. The UK also remains committed to tackling all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and we are combining our aid programming, policy leadership and diplomatic strength to take full advantage of the opportunities that 2021 offers to drive more concerted global action, including co-leading a global 'Action Coalition' on gender based violence as part of Generation Equality. We remain a leading global voice on LGBT rights and continue to fund projects in support of this aim. Our support to global health - which embraces many aspects of WASH, also remains a top priority for the UK Aid budget.

Final audited spend for 2020/21 will be published in the Annual Report and Accounts. Final 2020 spend will be published in Statistics on International Development in the autumn this year and will contain detailed breakdowns of the UK's ODA spend for 2020.