By Backlash over plans to cut foreign aid
The Government is facing a growing backlash over plans to cut foreign aid.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said in Wednesday’s Spending Review that this was needed to repair the economy following the coronavirus crisis.
The plans are to cut foreign aid from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of gross national income – a cut which would account for more than £4 billion.
However former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and ex-prime ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair are among those who have criticised the proposal.
While Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said it was “shameful and wrong” to remove support to some of the world’s poorest people during the pandemic.
The decision also led Baroness Sugg, the Minister for the Overseas Territories and Sustainable Development, to say she believed it was ‘fundamentally wrong’ and quit her post.
Former prime minister David Cameron has said he “deeply regrets” Rishi Sunak‘s decision to cut the UK’s foreign aid budget, saying it was a “mistake” to break a promise made to the poorest people in the world.
“It’s a very sad moment,” Mr Cameron said when asked for his thoughts on the chancellor’s move to break a manifesto pledge by cutting the overseas aid budget from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%.
He added: “We’re breaking a promise to the poorest people and the poorest countries in the world – a promise that we made and a promise that we don’t have to break.”
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Blair said Britain’s 0.7% commitment had saved millions of lives in the past 20 years by helping to reduce deaths from deadly diseases such as malaria and HIV in Africa.
Millions have also been educated, living standards raised, and life expectancy “dramatically” increased, he added.
The former Labour leader said: “This has been a great British soft power achievement. It isn’t about charity. It’s enlightened self-interest.
“Neither the challenge of climate or Covid can be met without Africa. Nor can those of extremism and uncontrolled immigration.”
Mr Sunak insisted the ‘intention is to return to 0.7 per cent when the fiscal situation allows’.
