Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if he will make it his Department's policy to sign up to the UK Steel Charter.

DFID provides technical assistance and commodities to meet humanitarian needs or extend basic services in developing countries. All DFID contracts are tendered in accordance with the EU Public Procurement Directive and the UK Public Procurement Regulations 2015, the focus of which is to ensure open and fair competition between bidders. This means our contracts are competitively tendered following a set of standard processes set out in the regulations These regulations establish what we can do as a public sector organisation and our processes also ensure that our due diligence of suppliers is comprehensive and rigorous.

This competitive approach helps ensure value for money in the delivery of UK aid. British companies have continued to be very successful in this competitive market with UK firms winning 80% of our contracts in 2018/19.