Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether her Department plans to provide Sri Lanka with official overseas aid to help that country finance essential imports.

The UK is providing support to Sri Lanka through multilateral institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB) and United Nations (UN). The World Bank (WB) has reprogrammed US$ 400 million in financial assistance to provide economic and health sector support to Sri Lanka. The UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has announced US$5 million for an urgent response to the economic crisis to support approximately 650,000 of the most vulnerable people in Sri Lanka. The UK is the largest overall donor to the CERF, contributing more than $1.7 billion to the fund since its inception fifteen years ago.

The Minister for South Asia, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, re-iterated the UK's support to Sri Lanka when he spoke to President Wickremesinghe on 23 July and Prime Minister Gunawardena on 16 August. We keep under review our response to the humanitarian needs of the Sri Lankan people.