The Prime Minister’s plans to cut the foreign aid budget from 0.5 per cent of gross national income to 0.3 per cent in 2027 suggests an increasing proportion of the cash will be spent on refugees or asylum seekers in the UK.
Cutting the aid budget to 0.3 per cent of national income would leave it at around £7.2bn, suggesting around half could be taken up on asylum and refugee costs unless the Government succeeds in significantly reducing the backlog of claims, hotel use and Channel crossings and therefore total costs.
Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of the Commons Development Committee, told The i Paper: “I’m extremely concerned that unless Home Office spend on refugees and asylum seekers drops dramatically, it looks like half the remaining aid budget will go on their hotel costs rather than supporting the poorest in the world – as is intended.”
Earlier in the Commons, Starmer said: “In recent years the development budget was redirected towards asylum backlogs, paying for hotels, so as we’re clearing that backlog at a record pace, there are efficiencies that will reduce the need to cut spending on our overseas programme.
It came as Labour former foreign secretary David Miliband warned that cutting the aid budget could add to the global migration crisis as “the danger is that without humanitarian help more people will flee their homes to seek security”.
He said the £6bn cut in aid spending was a “blow to Britain’s proud reputation as a global humanitarian and development leader” and would have “far reaching” and “devastating” consequences for the 300m people in the world in humanitarian need.
Johnson Gareth Redmond-King, head of the international programme at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said: “We import two fifths of our food from overseas, much of which we simply can’t grow here in the UK, and around half of that from areas most vulnerable to extremes driven by climate change, like floods and heat waves that destroy crops.
“Let’s be clear this can be life and death for struggling communities and this reduction could make meeting the UK’s climate finance commitments even more challenging.”
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Read MoreSave the Children UK similarly said it is “stunned” by the move, labelling it “a betrayal of the world’s most vulnerable children and the UK’s national interest”.
Water Aid called the shift in policy a “cruel betrayal” of people in poverty.
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