Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether the costs of rebranding and renaming the proposed Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will count towards the spending target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income for Official Development Assistance.

We will make the change in the most cost-effective way possible and set out full details in due course. Spending 0.7 percent of our national income on aid is enshrined in law and the UK continues to abide by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee rules for aid. We anticipate that in the long term the merger may bring efficiency savings to the cost of administering the aid budget, but that's not the primary goal of the merger, which is about uniting our international efforts so we can maximise the UK's influence around the world.