Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department has made an assessment of the impact of reducing the Official Development Assistance budget to 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) on foreign aid spending; and if he will make it his policy to increase that budget to 0.7% of GNI.

Due to the impact of the pandemic on public finances, the Government took the difficult decision temporarily to reduce the UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget from 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) to 0.5 per cent from 2021.

The FCDO's focus has been on how best to use its revised ODA budget. FCDO Ministers have used a range of information, including Equalities Impact Assessments and analyses of need, to make informed spending decisions, including focusing spend on the poorest and most vulnerable.

The Government remains committed to returning to a target of spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA when, on a sustainable basis, the Government is not borrowing for day-to-day spending and underlying debt is falling.