Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the proportion of their budget and personnel that is allocated to promoting human rights, the rule of law and democracy in other countries.

As explained in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)’s 2014 Annual Human Rights and Democracy Report, it is not possible to disaggregate an exact figure for what we spend annually on human rights and democracy work. This is because it is mainstreamed across the network, and thus a component of a wide range of FCO activities. However, by combining relevant programme spend, grant-in-aid spending, and estimated personnel costs, we were able to calculate a conservative figure of approximately £42.6 million for the financial year 2014-15. This figure does not include the cross-departmental Conflict Pool Fund (now the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund).