Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will make it her policy to adopt the UN monitoring group on Somalia's calls for a moratorium on the new oil and gas deals until appropriate constitutional, legislative, fiscal and regulatory provisions had been clarified and agreed to by the federal government and its regional authorities; and if her Department will take steps to discourage new oil deals in Somalia.

We have stressed to the Somalia authorities the need to agree resource and revenue sharing arrangements with the emerging federal states in Somalia, and put in place appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks for the management of Somalia’s natural resources. We are funding the World Bank to support a Somali-led process leading to agreement on revenue sharing, and to providing technical assistance to review the legal and regulatory framework.