Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what percentage of Gross National Income he plans to allocate to overseas spending in the 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Prime Minister has set out a new strategic vision for government spending on defence and security and Official Development Assistance (ODA). Given the multi-year nature of many international development spending commitments, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office is currently reassessing its ODA spending plans for the financial year of 2025/26 to ensure they deliver maximum value for money in the context of the transition to spending 0.3 per cent of gross national income on ODA by 2027. Detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be used will be worked through as part of the ongoing Spending Review based on various factors including impact assessments.
Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what the value is of the humanitarian reserve (a) as of 17 March 2025 and (b) in each of the next three years.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The £50 million Humanitarian Crisis Reserve (HCR) has been fully allocated and spent for financial year 24/25. The value of the HCR in future years is yet to be determined.
Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the 0.3% of Gross National Income figure for official development assistance is a (a) target figure or (b) minimum budget spend.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
We are facing a once-in-a-generation moment for the collective security of Europe. The peace dividend we have enjoyed for the past years is over and we need to raise defence spending to keep the UK safe. In order to remain committed to our fiscal rules, the government has taken the difficult decision to reduce Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fund this defence spending increase.
We will fund ODA spending to the equivalent of 0.3% of GNI by 2027.
The Government remains committed to international development and to returning ODA to 0.7% of GNI when fiscal conditions allow but will adopt a measured approach in the interim. The UK will continue to be a champion for development finance, championing innovation and pushing for reforms of the international financial architecture to support vulnerable countries.
Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what his Department's top development priorities are.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK remains committed to investing internationally to build a safer world. Reducing the overall size of our Official Development Assistance budget will necessarily have an impact on the scale and shape of the work we do. We will set out how our spending plans deliver on our priorities following the completion of the Spending Review and departmental resource allocation processes.
Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what proportion of official development assistance will be allocated to in-donor refugee costs in each fiscal year up to and including 2026/27.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Home Secretary is committed to ensuring that asylum costs fall and has already acted. The Government has taken measures to reduce the asylum backlog, reform the asylum accommodation system to end the use of expensive accommodation in the next Spending Review period and increase detention capacity to facilitate more asylum removals.
Whilst there will always be volatility in asylum forecasts, we expect these decisions to drive down overall in-donor refugee costs over the next Spending Review and the Home Office are well incentivised to deliver this.
Detailed decisions on how the Official Development Assistance budget will be used will be worked through as part of the ongoing Spending Review based on various factors including impact assessments.