Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to review the 1951 Refugee Convention; and if so, which aspects of that Convention they will review.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
I refer the Noble Lord to the answer of 7 October 2025 to question HL9967.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much of the Official Development Assistance budget in the next three years is intended to be spent on (1) development aid, and (2) other items, providing a full breakdown.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) published 2025/26 Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme allocations in the Annual Report & Accounts on 22 July 2025. Over the coming months, we will work through detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be used from 2026/27 to 2028/29, informed by internal and external consultation and impact assessments, ahead of publishing indicative multi-year allocations in the autumn.
We report all ODA spend in the Statistics on International Development publication. Provisional 2025 ODA spend will be published in spring 2026 and a full breakdown of 2025 ODA spend will be published in autumn 2026.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much of the Official Development Assistance budget is spent on (1) development aid, and (2) other items, providing a full breakdown.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) published 2025/26 Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme allocations in the Annual Report & Accounts on 22 July 2025. Over the coming months, we will work through detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be used from 2026/27 to 2028/29, informed by internal and external consultation and impact assessments, ahead of publishing indicative multi-year allocations in the autumn.
We report all ODA spend in the Statistics on International Development publication. Provisional 2025 ODA spend will be published in spring 2026 and a full breakdown of 2025 ODA spend will be published in autumn 2026.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are providing to the BBC World Service to help it perform its functions.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
At a time of global challenges and uncertainty, the Government is committed to a successful BBC World Service. This is why it awarded a grant funding uplift of £32.6 million (31 per cent) for the World Service in 2025-26, taking our total contribution this year to £137 million.
That uplift secured the World Service's ability to reach audiences in acute need. Services like the emergency radio service for Gaza, reaching over 700,000 people each week; the lifeline service for Syria established within 5 days of Assad's fall; and most recently, the Myanmar service, providing critical information following the horrific earthquake.
It is also enabling the BBC to continue innovating and modernising - see for example their launch of an AI-supported pilot Polish-language news offer, BBC News Polska.
The World Service's Grant-in-Aid funding for the next three years will be decided through Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office allocations process. This will allocate budgets between 2026/27 & 2028/29. The BBC is editorially and operationally independent.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
The Government is completely committed to ratification of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) which is in line with our determination to reinvigorate the UK's wider international leadership on climate and nature. Legislation will be introduced by the end of the year to enable ratification of the BBNJ Agreement. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has worked with the Commonwealth Secretariat to support smaller member countries with their implementation work, and the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs has published research to develop a shortlist of potential Area-Based Management Tools, including Marine Protected Areas that could be proposed once the Agreement is in force.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are providing to the British Council to help it perform its functions.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
This financial year (2025/26), the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is providing the British Council with £163.1 million in Grant-in-Aid to support its aims of promoting the English language, UK arts and culture, and education.
While the British Council's Board of Trustees is ultimately responsible for the British Council's financial sustainability, the FCDO is supporting the British Council to deliver a financial turnaround plan to ensure the finances are on a long-term stable footing.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what actions they have taken recently to uphold the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
The UK is working with international partners and the High Representative to bolster domestic institutions and actors to respond to threats to the Dayton Peace Agreement and protect Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH's) territorial integrity, and to encourage constructive engagement from leaders in the wider region. The Foreign Secretary's visits to BiH on 6-7 May and Serbia on 2 April underlined those efforts, as did the UK Special Envoy to the Western Balkans's address to the UN Security Council on 6 May. Minister Doughty engaged international partners at a meeting of the 'Quint' on 15 May and met BiH Foreign Minister Elmedin Konaković and the High Representative of BiH on 12 April.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what action they have taken, if any, to ensure that possible war crimes committed against British citizens Andrew Bagshaw and Chris Parry in Ukraine on or about 7 January 2023 are properly investigated.
Answered by Lord Collins of Highbury - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Office of the Prosecutor General in Ukraine has already recorded over 160,000 allegations of war crimes committed since Russia's barbaric invasion in February 2022. The majority of these will be investigated by Ukraine and where appropriate tried in Ukrainian courts. The UK has provided over £11.3 million in funding to support Ukraine's domestic accountability efforts to ensure allegations of war crimes can be fully and fairly investigated, by independent, effective, and robust legal mechanisms. Investigations into the deaths of Andrew Bagshaw and Chris Parry are a matter for the Ukrainian authorities, and we would respond to any requests for UK support through the usual judicial co-operation channels. It would not be appropriate to comment on any such requests or cooperation.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what practice they have adopted in relation to the investigation of alleged war crimes against British citizens.
Answered by Lord Collins of Highbury - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
This government has made a strong commitment to international justice, including through its continuing support for institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and through programme work which supports countries to deal with alleged war crimes fully, fairly and in line with international standards. The UK is committed to securing accountability for those responsible for atrocity crimes, and any allegations must be thoroughly investigated.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to sanctioning individuals involved in the issuing of the All-Serb Assembly joint declaration of June 2024 as part of their Bosnia and Herzegovina sanctions regime.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
The UK is committed to supporting the sovereignty, territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as set out in the Dayton Peace Agreement. We maintain a range of tools to tackle destabilising behaviour; our sanctions regime remains one of them. We do not speculate on future designations.