Home Office “robbing the UK’s greatly reduced foreign aid budget of billions of pounds a year” says IDC Chair

• Correspondence to the FCDO Permanent Under-Secretary on the Supplementary Estimates 2023-24 
• International Development Committee

Commenting on the figures in question in the letter, Committee Chair Sarah Champion MP said:

“Since 2020-21 the chunk of UK aid money the Home Office is taking from projects intended to support the poorest in the world in their home countries has blown up by 660% – this from an aid budget that had already been slashed with demonstrated, horrific consequences for the most vulnerable in the world.

“The Home Office are not clear exactly what they’re spending tax payers money on - the bulk of it is apparently on often unsuitable and even inhumane accommodation for the tens of thousands of people awaiting an asylum decision in a horribly backlogged system. But robbing the UK’s greatly reduced foreign aid budget of billions of pounds a year is just reprehensible. It’s certainly not in the spirit and may not be to the letter of the OECD rules on development assistance spending. It is counter-productive as our Aid budget is there to keep people safe and economically viable in their own homes, taking that security away increases the chances of them arriving on our shores. The Home Office must get its hands off this scarce funding and instead come up with a long term solution.”

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