Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the delivery of humanitarian aid in Syria is not (a) disrupted and (b) manipulated by the Assad regime.

FCDO have a zero tolerance approach to any suspicions, allegations or instances of aid diversion and have a number of steps in place to mitigate the risk of aid diversion in Syria. We have rigorous and robust checks to ensure aid goes to the people that need it, delivers value for money and protects against aid diversion. UK programmes are delivered by trusted partners with proven expertise. Robust due diligence checks on all partners are carried out by FCDO before entering into any agreements. We conduct regular performance reviews of our direct partners and we require all our partners to provide up to date information on the downstream partners they use. If partners fail to provide us with this information as per our agreements, then their funding can be suspended or permanently stopped. We also use third-party independent monitors to support our delivery partners and verify that aid is being delivered as intended.