Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, with reference to the finding that her Department's global results claim on saving maternal lives was unable to be confirmed on page i, paragraph 1 of the Executive Summary of the Independent Commission for Aid Impacts report of October 2018, Assessing DFID’s results in improving Maternal Health: An impact review, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of that finding.

We welcome the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s impact review on DFID’s results in improving maternal health. The recommendations will feed into DFID’s strategic planning.

Despite the helpful points that the report highlights, we stand by our estimates for the overall number of maternal lives we saved. We used an internationally respected modelling tool – the Lives Saved Tool. We were forced to make some assumptions, however, and therefore used the tool conservatively, excluding some results from large programmes where we could not be sure of accuracy. This was our best way to account for UK Aid to the taxpayer.