Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the implications for the merger of her Department with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the Aid Transparency Index rating the transparency of aid spending by her Department as very good and by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as fair.

The 2020 Aid Transparency Index was launched on 24 June and DFID remains ‘very good’ and the 2^nd best bilateral donor, and the FCO has improved performance, moving into the ‘fair’ category for the first time and scoring above average for the non-specialised ministries (foreign/defence/trade) assessed. DFID and FCO both lost points because they were unable to provide sufficiently forward-looking budget forecasts due to the limitations of the current Spending Review settlement, which will be addressed in future assessments.

The UK is globally recognised for its expertise and transparency in aid spending. The new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will continue to benefit from that expert knowledge as it delivers aid programmes to some of the world’s poorest people.

We are committed to improving transparency of aid globally and maintaining our high standards for overseas spending.?We will continue to be accountable to parliament and to taxpayers for how we spend UK aid, and to mandate our partners to be transparent.