Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department plans to continue to spend £500 million per year on tackling malaria.

The UK Government is committed to remain a world leader in tackling global diseases like malaria.

In the recent Spending Review we announced the Ross Fund, which will provide £1 billion to support research and implementation to tackle malaria and other infectious diseases. This will be one part of DFID’s balanced portfolio of investments in malaria control, delivered through bilateral and multilateral channels, support to health systems and service delivery and support to research.

The UK has pledged a contribution to the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria of up to £1 billion between 2014 and 2016, subject to a 10% donor share cap. This will dramatically improve the lives of millions of people, saving approximately 580,000 lives by preventing 8.4m new malaria, HIV and TB infections. Our future contributions to the Global Fund are being considered as part of the Spending Review.

We will lay out further investment plans in the future.