But do the Secretary of State’s claims defending this policy stand up to the same kind of close inspection?

In an interview for the BBC Politics show, Mr Mitchell made some questionable statements that Full Fact decided to investigate further.

 “We are educating overseas some five million children at 2.5 per cent of the cost. So if you were to repatriate the whole of that budget you would barely even buy a laptop in a class.”

The analysis

This claim is, frankly, ludicrous. The Department for International Development (DfID) confirmed to Full Fact that the amount spent on educating the five million children mentioned by Mr Mitchell is £600 million.

To compare this with the rate a school would pay for a laptop, Full Fact contacted RM, a firm specialising in computer supplies to schools. 

The company’s spokesman told us that, despite variations in price due to volume of computers bought, a figure of £500 would be a “safe estimate” for the cost of a laptop, if a little on the high side.

It is therefore hard to sustain the idea that repatriating the entire budget for overseas education would barely by a laptop for a UK classroom.

During the interview, Mr Mitchell gave little away as to whether the Government would end its aid programme for India.  

In the run up to the election the Conservatives attacked funding for wealthier countries such as China. Though the coalition has since ended Chinese aid, the Development Secretary suggested that such swift action may not be taken on cutting the amount of money given to India.

Alongside the historic ties between the UK and its former colony, Mr Mitchell pointed to the scale of the poverty problem faced by India as a reason not to end aid.

“There are more poor people in India than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

The analysis

While there is a debate surrounding the how best to arrive at an internationally comparable definition for poverty, there is a reasonable amount of evidence to back up Mr Mitchell on this point.
 
In 2008 the World Bank published figures showing that if poverty is measured as living on less than $2-a-day, there are more poor people living in India than in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is of course entirely possible that the rate of economic growth in India may have tipped the balance since the publication of these figures.

Yet, only last week the research by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, working on a new definition of poverty suggested that there were more people in poverty in the eight poorest states of India than in the 26 most deprived African countries.

Conclusion

While the comparison between India and sub-Saharan Africa checks out, there appears to be no basis for the Secretary of State’s estimate of the cost of a school laptop.

We put this to DfID, and a spokesperson explained that Mr Mitchell's statement was an “example to illustrate how little it costs to educate a child in the developed world compared to the UK.”

She added: “I think he meant to say one laptop per classroom per school.”