Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he is taking to steps to prevent Government departments from spending UK aid that do not achieve a (a) good or (b) very good at the next assessment by the Aid Transparency Index.

The UK is globally recognised for its expertise and transparency in aid spending and continues to be committed to improving transparency of aid globally and maintaining our own high standards for overseas spending. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will use this expert knowledge to work with aid spending Government departments to improve their aid transparency.

As with all public expenditure, HM Treasury allocates ODA funding to departments at each spending review. FCDO then provides support to these government departments through the HMG Transparency Community of Practice. This group has been used to champion aid transparency and has supported the majority of government departments to publish to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard. The assessment of 10 UK aid spending departments (Aid Transparency Review) which was published in 2020 provided a set of recommendations for future improvement which FCDO is helping them implement.