Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what (a) due diligence and (b) accountability mechanisms his Department has in place for British International Investment; and what assessment he has made of the adequacy of those mechanisms.

British International Investment (BII) undertakes impact, commercial, environmental, social (including gender and diversity), governance and business integrity due diligence by specialist teams over a period of several months prior to a decision by the Investment Committee. Enhanced due diligence is undertaken for projects viewed to be high risk. BII has an established confidential complaints mechanism [https://www.bii.co.uk/en/complaints-whistleblowing/], which allows anyone outside BII to report alleged breaches of the Policy on Responsible Investing by an investee, portfolio company of a fund or BII. BII regularly reports to FCDO on both environmental, social and governance (ESG) and Business Integrity issues. FCDO undertakes periodic reviews of BII's assurance processes and recommends actions to improve their robustness, and monitors implementation of these.