Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to the 2014 Commission of Inquiry Report on human rights in North Korea, if he will publish his Department’s total expenditure on teacher training programmes in North Korea; what estimate his Department has made of the amount spent on improving nutrition in children’s homes and childcare centres in North Korea; and what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of such programmes.

The Department for International Development (DFID) publishes the British Government's full Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) spend, broken down by country, each calendar year.

The British Council English Language Training Programme sought to expose North Korean teachers and students to an alternative view of the outside world, in line with the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry call to challenge the state's monopoly on information. It has provided training to hundreds of teachers and tuition to 4,500 students. The FCO has contributed around £220,000 in funding each year for the past four financial years. In May 2016, a British Council review found the programme was successfully achieving its aims of critical engagement and building cultural relations as well as improving English language levels. The programme was suspended in August 2017 when the FCO changed its Travel Advice for North Korea to advise against all but essential travel.

Our bilateral projects in North Korea focused on helping some of the most vulnerable members of society with a particular focus on children and disabled persons. This financial year the FCO funded a small-scale bilateral aid project that included a focus on improving children's nutrition in nurseries and childcare centres outside Pyongyang. This bilateral project totalled £20,000 and along with our two other small projects this financial year, closed down at the end of 2017. We will receive evaluation reports from our implementing partners in due course.