The Bishop of Southwark received the following written answers on 21st October 2024:
The Lord Bishop of Southwark asked His Majesty’s Government whether the plan to allocate additional Official Development Assistance (ODA) for (1) 2024–25, and (2) 2025–26, to compensate for the share of ODA being spent on refugees in the United Kingdom.
Lord Livermore (Lab, Treasury): The Government is committed to restoring ODA spending at the level of 0.7 per cent of GNI when fiscal circumstances allow. The Government is currently undertaking a Spending Review and will set out its approach to the House in due course.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark asked His Majesty’s Government what percentage of Official Development Assistance was spent outside the United Kingdom in (1) 2019, (2) 2020, (3) 2021, (4) 2022, (5) 2023, and (6) 2024.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Con, FCDO): The official source of data on UK Official Development Assistance is Statistics on International Development (SID). Table 1 shows the volume and percentage of UK ODA that is estimated to have been spent outside the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2023. Data for 2024 will be available via Statistics on International Development: Final UK ODA Spend 2024 in Autumn 2025.
Table 1: Volume and Percentage of UK ODA estimated to have been spent outside the UK (1), 2019 – 2023
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
| ODA spend outside UK (£millions) | 13,791 | 12,959 | 9,527 | 8,320 | 10,238 |
| Total ODA (£millions) | 15,176 | 14,477 | 11,423 | 12,786 | 15,344 |
| % of ODA spend outside UK | 90.9% | 89.5% | 83.4% | 65.1% | 66.7% |
Source: Statistics on International Development
1. Spend outside the UK has excluded these categories of in-donor spend: Refugees/asylum seekers in donor country; administrative costs not included elsewhere; private sector instrument intra-governmental transfers; scholarships/training in donor country; donor country personnel; development awareness.
2. There may be a portion of spend in the other types of aid which has been spent in the UK, for the benefit of developing countries, which can’t be separately identified.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark asked His Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to apply a cap to the share of Official Development Assistance reported as “in-donor refugee costs”.
Lord Livermore: The Government is committed to restoring ODA spending at the level of 0.7 per cent of GNI when fiscal circumstances allow. The Government is currently undertaking a Spending Review and will set out its approach to the House in due course.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark asked His Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to revise the fiscal tests used for determining when the Official Development Assistance Budget has returned to its required level of 0.7 per cent of gross national income.
Lord Livermore: The Government is committed to restoring ODA spending at the level of 0.7 per cent of GNI when fiscal circumstances allow. The Government is currently undertaking a Spending Review and will set out its approach to the House in due course.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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