Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much Official Development Assistance her Department has allocated to supporting refugees and displaced persons in each of the last five years.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK is strongly committed to supporting refugees and other displaced people and remains at the forefront of refugee responses around the world. To date, we have provided over £3.1 billion in response to the Syrian conflict, our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis, and since August 2017 £256 million for the Rohingya crisis. That has included immediate, life-saving aid such as food, shelter and clean water, as well as longer-term support such as jobs, livelihoods and access to education and health care.
We are one of largest donors to the UN’s Refugee agency and have helped develop and champion the Global Compact on Refugees, which supports long-term and holistic approaches to assistance and protection.
The UK is one of the biggest humanitarian donors world-wide and between April 2015 and March 2019, we reached 32.4 million people with humanitarian assistance (food aid, cash and voucher transfers). Between 2014 and 2018, DFID provided over £6 billion of bilateral humanitarian funding to people in need, including refugees and displaced people.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much funding his Department allocated to programmes to tackle HIV/AIDS in 2018-19.
Answered by Wendy Morton
In 2018, DFID spent £174.6 million multilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) to tackle HIV/AIDS. Most DFID investments to the HIV response are now directed through multilateral organisations such as Unitaid, UNAIDS and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. In addition, in 2018, DFID spent £10 million bilateral ODA on programmes tackling sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.
The UK has made a £1.4 billion pledge to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria for the 6th replenishment covering 2020 to 2022. This supports the commitment to end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.
This data does not capture spend on related programming on comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights, including research and health systems strengthening.
DFID spend data is available on the Statistics on International Development website. Comparable figures beyond December 2018 are not yet available. Estimates for 2019 spending will be available in autumn 2020.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to help developing countries tackle tax avoidance and evasion.
Answered by James Duddridge
DFID’s support is helping developing countries to collect more taxes from where they are due. The aim is to build self-sustaining economies that can generate their own financing through increased tax revenue and private investment. In addition to providing capacity building support in-country through bilateral support programmes, this includes providing £10.3 million to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to assist developing countries to implement international tax standards to tackle international tax evasion and avoidance. For example, through this funding we are supporting the ‘Tax Inspectors Without Borders’ initiative, which assists developing countries with issues such as complex international audits. This programme has generated an additional $100 in revenue for every $1 spent on operating costs.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent discussions his Department has had with representatives of the Government of Tanzania on aid to that country.
Answered by James Duddridge
The UK Government engages regularly on overseas development assistance with representatives of the Government of Tanzania. These discussions take place at all levels of government, from national to local. This is to ensure that our aid is targeted, impactful and in line with national priorities.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what discussions officials in his Department have had with representatives of the Nigerian Government on Official Development Assistance allocated to that country.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Government engages regularly on overseas development assistance with representatives of the Nigerian Government at all levels – including Federal, State and Local government administrations. We do this at all stages of our programming, from portfolio discussions, to more granular engagement on design, delivery and lesson learning following the closure of our projects.
While no money goes directly to the Government of Nigeria, aid is delivered in partnership with government bodies to ensure it is effective, impactful and in line with national priorities.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what weighting is given to bids made by British companies tendering for contracts from his Department for projects overseas.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
DFID complies with the UK's Public Contracts Regulations (2015), which impose a legal obligation on contracting authorities to treat all suppliers equally and not to discriminate by, amongst other things, favouring national suppliers.
Opening up DFID contracts to competition from across the world means that UK Aid can draw on a bigger pool of expertise and experience and negotiate better value for money for the British taxpayer. UK-registered firms win on average around 85% of DFID contracts by value.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent discussions he has had with the Minister for the Cabinet Office on a cross-governmental approach to the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department for International Development and the Cabinet Office work closely to support cross-government implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Cabinet Office supports domestic coordination on the SDGs and ensures that progress on the Government’s priorities, including the SDGs, is maximised.
There is ongoing engagement with Cabinet Office Ministers on a wide range of issues.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, in which countries her Department has awarded contracts for the drilling of water wells; and how many of those contracts were awarded in each country.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
DFID delivers a range of water supply activities, through partners in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia all of which use proven approaches that deliver affordable and sustainable services.
In countries such as Mozambique and Nepal, these approaches include, but are not limited to, drilling for water wells.
Aid reporting codes do not allow for a detailed breakdown of the specific techniques for delivering water supply.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much and what proportion of Official Development Assistance allocated to Tanzania was received by local and national nongovernmental organisations.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
For the previous fiscal year 2018/19, £8.7 million of DFID Tanzania bilateral spend (equivalent to 6%) was received by local and national non-governmental organisations.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that Official Development Assistance is not allocated by the Palestinian Authority to the families of people who have been involved in terrorist activity.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
No UK aid is used for payments to prisoners or their families or the Martyrs Fund. DFID has robust measures in place to ensure UK Aid reaches only its intended beneficiaries. UK aid to the Palestinian Authority’s (PA’s) health and education sectors is channelled through the EU Palestinian-European Socio-Economic Management Assistance Mechanism. Our money goes into a dedicated bank account before being paid to individuals who have been carefully vetted in advance. The bank account is only used for UK aid. Independent auditors check that the money paid out from this bank account only went to the vetted individuals after every disbursement.
UK assistance to the PA for water and energy will be through the World Bank Partnership for Infrastructure Development in the West Bank and Gaza Multi Donor Trust Fund. UK aid will flow from the trust fund to dedicated accounts that will be managed by the PA in accordance with rules established by the World Bank, and be subject to the review of external financial auditors to provide assurance that the expenditure of funds was only on agreed programme activities.