Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment has he made of the implications for his policies of the UK's most recent ranking in Transparency International’s global Corruption Perceptions Index.

The UK has robust safeguards to protect our institutions from corruption and we are determined to ensure transparency and accountability is embedded at all levels of government. The UK continues to be perceived as very low for corruption in comparison with the wider international community.

We have some of the strongest controls in the world to combat money laundering and illicit finance, and we continue to strengthen our approach through the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill which will bear down on the use of UK companies as vehicles for facilitating corruption. The Procurement Bill will also add greater transparency in contracting, with more data making it easier for the public to scrutinise decisions and clearer requirements on managing potential conflicts of interest.