Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the reduction in the Overseas Aid Budget on lower income countries' ability to (a) reduce carbon emissions and (b) prepare for the effects of climate change.

The UK will spend more than £10 billion this year to tackle climate change, improve global health and fight poverty - making us one of the biggest aid donors in the G7. However the impact of the pandemic on the public finances has forced us to take tough but necessary decisions on how we spend taxpayers' money, including temporarily reducing the aid budget.

As set out in the Integrated Review, tackling climate change and biodiversity loss is the UK's number one international priority in 2021 and beyond. We remain committed to our five-year pledge to spend £11.6 billion on international climate finance. This will support developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change and adopt clean growth pathways, reducing or avoiding carbon emissions.