Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of cuts to Overseas Development Assistance on the budget of the National Crime Agency's International Corruption Unit.

A thorough assessment was carried out in both financial years 2020/21 and 2021/22, of the potential impact of ODA budget reduction on the National Crime Agency's International Corruption Unit (ICU), and before any budget decision was made. Because of the importance of the ICU's work, FCDO decided to prioritise the ICU budget as far as possible, when deciding where to make required cuts to ODA.

In 2020/21, the annual ICU budget was increased from £4.7m to £5.7million. In 2021/22, the budget was reduced by approximately 10% to £5.02 million. This was based on an assessment that the ICU would be able to manage this cut through not expanding into new areas, whilst preserving existing work and staffing. This remains above the pre-pandemic 2019/20 ODA budget of £4.7 million. The impact of the small budget reduction is regularly monitored by the Department.