Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what procedures and checks are in place to ensure that payments made by the Department for International Development cannot be used for terrorism purposes; and whether any payments have been (1) withdrawn, (2) refused, and (3) prohibited, since the beginning of 2015 on grounds connected with actual, suspected or potential terrorism.

The Department for International Development has a zero tolerance approach to UK aid funds being diverted to fund terrorist activities and the UK Government publishes a list of prescribed extremist groups or organisations banned under UK law. The Department has robust measures in place to protect, prevent, and detect the diversion of aid. We have controls embedded through-out the programme cycle including a rigorous due diligence process and a comprehensive risk management framework which requires risks to be identified prior to any disbursement of aid.

All organisations that receive funding from the Department are required to provide evidence about the use of funds, including audited financial statements which are examined as we monitor programme performance and delivery. All of our funding mechanisms allow the Department to terminate project funding early.

Where there are allegations of misuse of aid funds, these are investigated fully by the Department’s specialist Counter Fraud Unit, and funds are always recovered to the fullest extent possible. Funds subject to such diversion have been stopped in the past and will continue to be stopped should there be substantive evidence of UK aid being connected in any way to terrorist activities. The Department’s procedure is to inform the relevant UK security agencies in such circumstances and, given the sensitivity of such cases and the fact that active criminal investigations are ongoing, we cannot release further details.