Report and Government response published
The Government must put the UK’s aid budget beyond the reach of the Home Office and ringfence it to spend in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, the International Development Committee is urging today.
In a searingly concise report of 14 paragraphs, the Committee sets out the evidence to demonstrate that the world’s poorest countries are being short-changed as a result of other Government departments raiding the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO's) aid budget. Meanwhile the aid budget has been cut to 0.55 per cent of Gross National Income and aid programmes which support the world’s poorest people overseas have been disproportionately cut.
The UK Government’s approach to spending ODA in the UK is incompatible with the spirit of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee rules, says today’s report. Most countries take a conservative approach, recognising that the ODA budget is for spending that “promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries.”
This makes the Government’s choice to spend a significant and increasing proportion of the ODA budget in the UK a “political choice”. It is a self-defeating decision which is likely only to increase the number of refugees arriving in the UK.
Read the Report: Aid spending in the UK
Read the Government response: Aid spending in the UK