Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will takes steps to adapt her Department's budget to favour Commonwealth countries.

DFID's development programming is concerned with extreme poverty everywhere, but the Department focuses its financial investments on poor people in countries where extreme poverty is currently a problem, with relatively weak future prospects of the poor, and for which a self-financed exit from poverty is not feasible at this stage.

DFID has 28 priority countries, fourteen of which are Commonwealth countries. The UK is committed to its strong relationships with the countries of the Commonwealth and in the financial year 2013-14, approximately one third of the Department's bilateral expenditure went to Commonwealth countries. These figures exclude the UK Government's contribution to multilateral organisations and regional programmes which also benefit Commonwealth countries.