Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of reductions to the Official Development Aid on (a) the VSO and (b) other British companies with a significant presence in the UK.

Decisions on how the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget will be used are being worked through as part of the ongoing allocations process following the Spending Review. This will be based on various factors, including impact assessments.

We are working out how our partnership with Voluntary Service Overseas should evolve in line with our new approach to civil society funding which will support the sustainability of international organisations and their partners in developing countries, enabling them to become more self-sustaining and resilient in the future.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) have been monitoring the impact of budget reductions on all our suppliers. We will continue to monitor the impact as spending decisions are made. Staff across the FCDO have been given guidance on the importance of engaging with our suppliers to manage the pivot in ODA programming responsibly if scaling down or exiting programmes.