7. What steps her Department is taking to end aid dependency through jobs and economic development. (165590)

I am ramping up my Department’s economic development efforts to ensure that we adopt a more systematic and structured approach in order to unlock more trade and investment. That includes embarking on a new relationship with the CBI, meeting representatives of the extractive industries and engineering companies, and starting to work with United Kingdom retailers to drive up standards.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that poverty can only be reduced in the long run through economic development, and that DFID can play a major role in helping companies to grow and get people into work so that they can raise their own tax revenues to fund their own services?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. United Kingdom companies also have a key role to play, and companies in his own constituency, such as Taylors of Harrogate, demonstrate how that can be done.