Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he plans to support the development of phage therapy solutions for low-to-middle-income countries.

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is not directly supporting the development of phage therapy solutions currently. The FCDO is monitoring research developments, which may prove phage therapy solutions useful for tackling antimicrobial resistance, other anti-infective uses, vaccines and cancer therapies, however this work is at an early stage.

The Prime Minister has set out a clear path to spending 2.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product on defence spending. Doing so demands the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income by 2027. Decisions on how the ODA budget will be used in future will be worked through as part of the ongoing Spending Review and resource allocation processes. We will be taking a rigorous approach to ensure all ODA delivers value for money.