Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty rates in the global south.

COVID-19 is likely to have resulted in over 140 million additional people living in extreme poverty - around 2% of the global population - and many more will have temporarily fallen below the poverty line. This is a seven-year reversal in progress to reduce poverty.

But the UK is at the forefront of the international response, committing up to £1.3 billion of new ODA to counter the health, economic, and humanitarian impacts of COVID-19, including mobilising COVAX to provide vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. We have also reprogrammed over 300 existing programmes to respond to the challenges created by COVID-19, and are supporting the multilateral development banks to make over £200 billion of financing available to developing countries. The UK is also playing a key role in setting the agenda for a longer-term recovery through our Presidency of the G7 in 2021.