Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government who decided to give £51.7 million of Official Development Assistance to China last year; how this aligns with their commitment in April 2021 to reduce such funding by 95 per cent; and when this reduction will be implemented.

The UK Government stopped direct government-to-government bilateral aid to the Chinese Government in 2011. The FCDO cut aid programming in China by 95 per cent from the 2021-22 financial year. All new FCDO ODA programming in 2021 was limited to supporting projects that furthered our open societies and human rights objectives in China, such as funding important research on the human rights violations occurring in Xinjiang. There was additional programme spend in 2021-22 to meet the exit costs of former programmes. In addition to programme spend, FCDO Official Development Assistance (ODA) to China in 2021 includes other types of spend that is counted as ODA, such as ODA eligible operational costs for UK diplomatic missions in China, Chevening scholarships, ODA-eligible British Council activity and funding for the Great Britain China Centre. It is not direct assistance to the Chinese government but is categorised as ODA in line with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Development Assistance Committee rules on ODA reporting. Total HMG ODA to China in 2021 also included spend by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [£18.8 million], the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs [£30,000] and, in the first quarter of the year only, the Prosperity Fund [£2.8 million]. Details on all UK ODA projects for 2021, including those to China, can be found in the Statistics on International Development publication in 'Data Underlying the SID': https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1119764/data-underlying-SID-2021.ods