Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of providing a multi-year funding settlement for its work on China.

The FCDO receives multi-year funding settlements at each Spending Review, which are then allocated internally. The FCDO have published their planned budget allocations for the remaining years of the current Spending Review period (2023-24 and 2024-25) within the 2022-23 Annual Report and Accounts.

As set out in the Integrated Review Refresh in March, we will double our funding (financial year 2024-25) to build China capabilities across the Government in recognition of the evolving and epoch-defining challenge that China poses. We are unable to comment on funding allocations outside of the current Spending Review period.