§ Miss LestorTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the levels of returns to the United Kingdom economy of tied aid expenditure for(a) bilateral and (b) multilateral aid in each of the last five years. [36654]
§ Mr. HanleyThe returns to the United Kingdom economy of bilateral tied aid expenditure were examined in the recently concluded tied aid studies, the findings of which ODA will publish shortly. The studies found that 415W bilateral tied aid has only a small impact on the UK economy. They did not provide a precise measure of the returns.
None of the UK's contributions to multilateral aid is tied. But the returns to the UK economy from our contributions to multilateral aid are significant. The latest estimate is that for every £1 contributed, 90p is spent in the UK on procurement of goods and services—latest available three year moving average. These figures are imprecise, given differing definitions used by the multilateral organisations. But the trend is declining when compared with previous estimates because developing countries themselves are receiving a larger share of procurement and because a bigger proportion of our multilateral aid goes through the EU, where our share of procurement has tended to be lower than in the World bank or UN agencies.