Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what contribution from the public purse has been made to the Commonwealth Secretariat in each of the last five years; and how much the UK is expected to so provide in each of the next five years.

The UK remains the largest financial contributor to the Commonwealth Secretariat, providing around 32% of the total budget. To establish a reasonable baseline, financial contributions to the Secretariat's general budget are based on scales agreed at the UN. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) assessed contributions for the last five years were as follows:

2011/2012 £5,168,586

2012/2013 £5,262,654

2013/2014 £5,326,331

2014/2015 £5,455,484

2015/2016 £5,469,640

UN scales of assessment 2016 - 2018 were agreed in New York in December 2015. They will form the basis for future FCO contributions to the Secretariat's general budget. Under existing Commonwealth guidelines, the budget is shared amongst the membership in accordance with three principles: Capacity to Pay, Equitable burden sharing and shared ownership and responsibility. This ensures that all members enjoy an equal voice within the organisation.

In addition to FCO assessed contributions, the Department for International Development also makes voluntary contributions to the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation and a number of Commonwealth programmes.