Official Development Assistance: Bilateral Allocations

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sugg]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to publish a full list of bilateral allocations for Official Development Assistance spending for 2026–27 to 2028–29.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

The Government are committed to publishing FCDO country ODA allocations in or before the FCDO annual report and accounts 2025-26. The annual report is due to be published in July. Publishing the annual report is in line with previous FCDO practice.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer, and I look forward to the publication. The cuts to the UK’s official development assistance—some of the most severe across G20 countries—mean that the remaining bilateral spend will need to be targeted to remain as effective as possible. How will the Government monitor, track and publish progress against the FCDO’s six refreshed priorities? For example, on women and girls, which I am pleased to see is one of the six priorities, what discretion will heads of missions have, and how will the Government ensure effectiveness in these areas of bilateral spend?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

What we are doing to make this better—I appreciate that there is less money—is to give three years’ worth of certainty to our posts. We are also requiring them, rather than submitting for approval programme by programme, to do that as a portfolio, so that we can see how everything fits together. Posts are experts, they are there in country, and we pay them to know what they are doing. They can do an analysis of what they think the best approaches are for that particular place, and we are enabling them to do that with the three years’ worth of certainty that they now have.