Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has instructed Official Development Assistance programme teams to pause new (a) business cases, (b) contracts, and (c) funding for programmes supporting women, peace, and security; whether any reductions or cancellations have been made to existing programmes in these areas; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of such actions.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The transition to spending 0.3 per cent of gross national income on Official Development Assistance (ODA) demands significant shifts in the scale and shape of our ODA spending. To enable us to deliver this change effectively, we are prioritising meeting legally binding commitments and delivering work already underway, and planned humanitarian spend. Further detail is set out in Baroness Chapman's 27 March letter to the International Development Committee [https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/47275/documents/245059/default/].
The UK is committed to empowering women and girls around the world through our international work.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many School Attendance Order (a) prosecutions and (b) fines there were under section 443 of the Education Act 1996 in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The volume of defendants prosecuted and fined for offences under 443 of the Education Act 1996 from 2015 - 2024 (January to September) is provided in the attached table 1.
Note that that this is an additional breakdown of statistics published by the Ministry of Justice on volumes of criminal proceedings.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what progress he has made on the Development Review; and how he plans to use that review to inform the planned reduction in UK aid spending.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Development Review considered how to maximise the UK's combined diplomatic and development expertise in its international development work. Reducing the overall size of our Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget will necessarily have an impact on the scale and shape of the work we do. The recommendations of the Development Review, alongside the Global Impact and Economic Diplomacy reviews, are now being considered as part of the Foreign Secretary's wider work to reform the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and will also inform decisions on the ODA budget.