§ Mr. AlexanderTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment she has made of the impact of the Government's policy on debt reduction on her target of halving world poverty by 2015. [113495]
§ Mr. FoulkesThe Government have continually emphasised that the purpose of debt relief is to enable countries to make greater progress on reducing poverty and achieving the international development targets. Our submission to the review of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative set out ways in which the impact of debt relief on poverty reduction could be increased, and I welcome the improvements to the HIPC framework that have been agreed internationally and are now being implemented. The revised HIPC initiative both provides deeper and faster debt relief to qualifying countries, and ensures that a poverty reduction strategy is put in place so that all development resources, including those freed up by HIPC debt relief, can be invested effectively in anti-poverty programmes.