Andy Burnham and his Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband have privately committed to reversing cuts to Britain’s aid budget – in a move likely to heap further pressure on the Treasury to raise taxes.
The i Paper understands that the pair have privately indicated that they support finding a route back to spending 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) on international aid. However, no timeframe has yet been put on how long it will take before such a spending commitment can be met.
The UK’s foreign aid budget helps fund humanitarian relief, healthcare, education and development projects in poorer countries around the world.Labour opposed cuts to the foreign aid budget under the Conservative government and ahead of the the 2024 election, promised to restore it to 0.7 per cent when circumstances permitted.
But after becoming Prime Minister, Keir Starmer went further in the opposite direction, announcing in February 2025 that aid would be cut from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of GNI by 2027, using the savings to increase defence spending.
Since then influential Labour backbenchers have been lobbying the Government to restore the aid target. Days before Burnham entered No10, Labour MP Fleur Fleur Anderson, a former minister whose career before entering parliament was in international development, called on the new PM to restore the commitment. She suggested setting a 10-year road back to meeting that goal, which future governments could deviate from in times of crisis.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband wants to boost the UK’s Foreign Aid Budget (Photo credit should read Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)Both Burnham and Miliband have historically been vocal supporters of the 0.7 per cent target, with Burnham explicitly defending it during the 2010 Labour leadership contest and Miliband backing the commitment as Labour leader.
A Government source told The i Paper: “They both understand why meeting the commitment is important,” while another said they had both privately indicated their intention to find a route back to meeting the target.
Recent analysis of the impact of the cut under Starmer suggested bilateral aid to some African countries had been cut by as much as 90 per cent.
A full return to the 0.7 per cent aid target would eventually imply a substantial increase in spending compared with the planned 0.3 per cent level – roughly £13bn a year on current economic projections – a figure recognised by the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank.
Max Warner, a senior research economist at the IFS, told The i Paper: “These are not insignificant sums, and as with any increase in spending would need to be funded by some combination of lower spending elsewhere, higher taxes or higher borrowing.”
But there is no suggestion that ministers would have to restore the full amount in a single year. A phased increase could spread the cost over several years, with each step dependent on the country’s finances.
The issue comes as Burnham faces tight constraints on his spending plans. The IFS warned last month that, despite a growing state, spending on public services would remain tight, with the NHS potentially taking relatively generous settlements at the expense of other departments. It said that if the new Government wanted to spend significantly more on its priorities, it would have to decide which other areas to spend less on or which taxes to raise.
Miliband has signalled that he intends to put international development and climate policy at the centre of his work as Foreign Secretary. On taking office, he said Britain would work with other countries to tackle the climate crisis, strengthen partnerships on international development and reform international institutions so they deliver for the world’s poorest people.
In an early signal of his ambitions, Miliband personally took up Britain’s seat at the World Bank, saying the move demonstrated that the UK was serious about its global leadership on development and climate. The World Bank is an international organisation that provides help developing countries reduce poverty and grow their economies.
Miliband’s ability to reverse that trend has already been questioned by some NGOs and Labour development advocates, who point to the competing spending priorities facing the new Government.
Burnham has promised to fund a national cap on bus fares by switching grants for international climate projects into repayable loans – a move that illustrates the choices facing him as he seeks to balance domestic and international priorities.
The tension could become more pronounced if ministers seek to increase spending on aid while also protecting other commitments. Miliband’s ambitions for development and climate policy therefore face not only the question of how much money the Treasury can provide, but also whether the Government is willing to prioritise those areas over competing demands at home.
However, some Labour MPs see his choice of Kirsty McNeill as the FCDO’s junior international development minister as further evidence of that ambition. McNeill, an experienced development specialist who previously advised former Labour PM Gordon Brown and was an executive director at Save the Children, has been praised by colleagues as someone who understands the links between development, instability and international security.
When asked about Burnham’s support for reinstating the 0.7 per cent target, a No 10 source pointed to Labour’s 2024 manifesto, which states that the party is “committed to restoring development spending at the level of 0.7 per cent of GNI as soon as fiscal circumstances allow. Miliband was approached for comment.
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