Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many staff in her Department worked on issues relating to taxation in the developing world in each of the last five years.

The estimated numbers of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff members are one FTE in 2008/09 and 2009/10, two in 2010/11 and four in 2011/12 and 2013/14. These are staff based in the UK working specifically on tax and do not include the wide range of staff across the Department, including policy, financial, corporate advisers and staff in country offices, who also work on tax. This does not include HMRC staff providing tax capacity technical assistance in DFID partner countries.