Boris begs to use foreign aid to help Irma victims
BORIS Johnson called yesterday for an international rule change to allow the UK to use its overseas aid budget to help the British Virgin Islands after Hurricane Irma.
The Foreign Secretary spoke out after it emerged that restrictions set by the international Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development effectively block Britain from using its international aid fund to help out its overseas territories because they are too well off.
Speaking during a press conference with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Mr Johnson, just back from a trip to the devastated Caribbean, said: “Anybody who has seen the effects of the hurricane would see that it has been absolutely catastrophic.
“I have never seen anything like it. The destruction reminds you of images from the First World War and I think that anybody with an ounce of compassion would want to see spending by our Government to get people back on their feet.
“We will now look across Whitehall to make sure there are ways in which our aid budget could be used in that way.”
Downing Street insisted the UK’s effort had not been hampered by the rules, which exclude Anguilla, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands from support from the aid budget because their incomes are too high. But the Prime Minister’s spokesman stressed that International Development Secretary Priti Patel was leading efforts to change the restrictions.
The spokesman said: “The Prime Minister is frustrated with the rules as they stand.”
The UK has pledged a total of £57million towards disaster relief and the public has helped to raise a further £1.3million.
But an unnamed minister told the BBC the figure would have been significantly higher without the strict international rules governing the allocation of the UK’s £13billion aid budget.
Labour refused to back the Government’s call for overseas aid money to be used to help victims in the British Virgin Islands.
But in Parliament, Tory backbencher Philip Davies labelled the OECD “outof-touch morons”.
Mr Johnson and Mr Tillerson had been holding talks on Iran, North Korea and the crisis caused by the hurricane.