Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the report by the Great Britain China Centre Reports and Accounts, published on 31 March 2019, how much funding they have provided through the Prosperity Fund to resource projects seeking to enable "fairer market access and advancing economic reform to support China’s prosperity”; what assessment they have made of the outcome of any such projects; what due diligence they undertake into the companies which participate in those programmes; and what assessment they have made of whether those companies have any links to forced labour supply chains.

The China Business Environment programme, funded through the former UK cross-government Prosperity Fund (PF), supports work in protecting intellectual property, improving international standards, the investment environment, commercial dispute resolution and anti-money laundering initiatives. It is designed to contribute to a fairer, more transparent and predictable business environment for all business in China, including international and UK companies.

In 2020, the programme supported business environment reform in China by contributing to 3 major legal and regulatory changes; including on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), anti-monopoly measures and strengthening China's legal regime on 'force majeure'. A full assessment of the China Business Environment programme can be found in the 2019 Annual Review online via https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/china-prosperity-fund-programme.