Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to reduce the amount of Overseas Development Assistance spent on in-donor refugee costs.

We will use our development spending to achieve better outcomes as part of a coherent international approach, with a strong focus on poverty reduction and accelerating progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Home Secretary is committed to ensuring asylum costs fall and has already acted. This includes taking measures to reduce the asylum backlog and end the use of expensive hotels. We expect these plans to create more space in the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget to spend on our international development priorities overseas. The first meeting of the re-established ODA Board, chaired by myself and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will focus on in-donor refugee costs.