£5m foreign aid...to boost fishing in the Caribbean!
MORE than £5million of Britain’s soaring aid budget is to go towards improving fishing on Caribbean islands like Barbados.
The 25 ‘small island’ Commonwealth recipients include Bermuda, Jamaica, the Maldives, the Seychelles, and St Lucia plus Trinidad and Tobago.
The £5.6million to be spent next year will help the countries’ ‘maritime economies’ of tourism, shipping and fishing, Downing Street said.
Speaking at the Commonwealth Summit in Malta yesterday, David Cameron said he wanted to help the countries ‘make the most of their natural maritime advantages’.
But the announcement raised fresh doubts over whether aid is spent wisely overseas, with Tory critics saying taxpayers ‘will despair’ at cash being handed to fishermen in the West Indies rather than being spent on priorities in the UK.
The likely island recipients include some of the world’s top tourist destinations, many of which already have highly- developed fishing industries.
The Prime Minister unveiled the funds as part of a £26million package. The rest will go on initiatives to help island countries protect themselves from climate change and there is £15million to fund disaster insurance for Pacific islands to help countries get quick access to funding aid if they suffer a natural catastrophe.
Another £5million will assist poor states with natural disaster prevention plans while around £1million will help raise money for infrastructure projects.
Global leaders will meet in Paris next week to discuss a climate change deal.
Speaking yesterday, Mr Cameron said: ‘Today we have a real opportunity to get the small island states that are so vulnerable to climate change on board for an ambitious global climate change deal.
‘Britain is firmly committed to helping these countries deal with the effects of climate change and that’s why we’re announcing new support today to help protect them from the risks of climate change and to make the most of their natural maritime advantages which are so vital to their economies.’
The news comes in a week when figures revealed in George Osborne’s Autumn Statement showed how overseas aid spending will spiral over the next five years despite cuts being applied elsewhere.
The Daily Mail revealed yester- day that Britain will spend £16.3billion on its foreign aid programme by 2020 – overtaking the £16.2billion spent on police, prisons, immigration and border control at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. It means that the overseas aid budget will consume £100million more than the sum to be spent on the traditional Tory priority of tackling crime.
The target of spending 0.7 per cent of UK income on foreign aid is ‘overwhelmingly in our national interest’, Mr Osborne said. But critics warn the cash suppport is often wasted.
Peter Bone, Tory MP for Wellingborough, said: ‘While people agree that money should be spent on helping Syrian refugees, they will despair at the idea of supporting tourism and fishing in the West Indies.
‘ But when you guarantee to spend billions to get to a certain percentage of GDP, you will see money wasted on silly projects abroad when it would be better off spent on public services at home.’