As UK’s aid budget soars to £14bn, MPs demand... CURB BLOATED FOREIGN AID
BRITAIN’S foreign aid budget soared by £555million to almost £14billion last year – more than doubling over a decade.
The figures released yesterday will intensify calls for ministers to look again at the pledge introduced by David Cameron to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas handouts each year.
Ministers are facing pressure to give more money to vital services at home such as cancer screening, schools and the NHS.
Council tax bills are rising by the biggest amount for 14 years this year, in part because of the social care crisis – and policing resources are under scrutiny after more than 50 murders in London since the start of the year.
The Treasury is also under pressure to give more money to defence as the threat from Russia intensifies.
Meanwhile, the Home Office faces a backlash over its decision to hand the contract for post-Brexit blue passports to a foreign firm, to save just £10.4million a year.
Despite this, yesterday’s figures showed a jump of 4.2 per cent in the UK’s overseas aid spending in 2017 – taking the foreign budget to a record £13.9billion.
It means the sum has more than doubled from the £6.4billion spent in 2008 and more than quadrupled from the £3.3billion doled out in 2002. Tory MPs last night called for a rethink and urged Penny Mordaunt, the
International Development Secretary, to look again at how Britain’s aid cash is distributed.
Foreign aid is calculated according to gross national income, which hit more than £2trillion last year. The budget increased in spite of a string of controversies and critical reports over how the money is spent.
The Daily Mail last year revealed more than £1billion had been given away in cash over the past five years, including via a £300million scheme in Pakistan that has been dogged by claims of corruption.
In 2016, aid officials cancelled a £5.2million project to fund a talk show for Ethiopia’s Spice Girls after the Mail highlighted the case.
And last year, there was fury when it emerged that international rules meant the UK government could not spend foreign aid on British overseas territories hit by hurricane Irma.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for North East Somerset, said last night: ‘Protecting the overseas aid budget continues to be a costly mistake when there are so many other pressing demands on the budget.’
Britain has met the 0.7 per cent target every year since 2013.
Nigel Evans, a Tory member of the Commons international development committee, said: ‘We shouldn’t
‘Grotesque waste of money’
spend the money just to get rid of it … that is an obscene and grotesque waste of taxpayers’ money … We should have our own sovereign fund for humanitarian emergencies.’
He called for a review of aid rules, adding that taxpayers ‘wonder why it is that why we’ve got money for foreign aid but no money for essentials at home.’
Although most of the aid budget is used by the Department for International Development, other departments are increasingly having to help to get the money out of the door.
In 2017, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which tackles climate change and supports research in developing countries, spent £769million in aid – an increase of £73million on 2016.
The Department of Health and Social Care spent £101million in 2017, more than double the £46million it was allocated in the previous year. Officials said the boost mainly went on developing vaccines for diseases with ‘epidemic potential’.
Some £557million went to a cross- government fund to spread peace to war- torn nations. But last week, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact said there was a lack of proper checks on whether the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund had a positive impact. Schemes include support to the army and police in countries notorious for human rights abuses.
Some £54.2million was lavished on India, the world’s fastest growing economy, which boasts more billionaires than the UK and itself hands out millions to needy nations. The data also revealed Britain overshot the 0.7 per cent target by £2.2million in 2016.
Conservative MP Peter Bone said: ‘Much of the money is not spent properly … What I want to see is more of that money spent in our own country … The way to improve the situation in developing countries is to trade with them.’
Fellow Tory Andrew Bridgen said: ‘We measure our success by the amount of money we shovel out the door, not how much good we do with it.’
Figures this year showed Britain is one of only seven countries to meet the target.
A Government spokesman said: ‘Our aid budget only increases when the UK economy grows … we are driving value for money to ensure aid cannot be better spent.
‘2017 was an unprecedented year for catastrophic crises and UK aid saved millions of vulnerable people … creating a safer, healthier and more prosperous world for us all, which is in our national interest.’
WITH London in the grip of a murderous crime wave, military chiefs warning that Britain’s Armed Forces don’t have the resources to guarantee our security and the NHS crying out for cash, many will find the news that our foreign aid spending has almost hit £14billion deeply offensive.
A fraction of that money would pay for thousands of extra police and service personnel, fund vital screening programmes for prostate and bowel cancer and help fix our broken elderly care system.
Yet the Government stubbornly refuses to see sense by abandoning the Coalition’s absurd commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on international aid. This year alone, thanks to Britain’s strong economic performance ( despite the scaremongering of Project Fear), aid spending has soared by £555million.
That increase would fund thousands more nurses, doctors and police – to tackle the scourge of gang violence.
Instead, much of the £14billion will go into the pockets of Third World despots, corrupt agents and charities whose own reputations have been deeply tainted by recent sex-for-aid scandals.
Yes, it’s a source of pride that Britain is among the most charitable nations on earth. But the truth is, the sums involved here are grotesque. The Department for International Development has so much cash it simply can’t find enough worthy schemes to spend it on – which is why it ends up bankrolling such ludicrous projects as the Ethiopian Spice Girls and youth football in China.
When youngsters are being murdered on the streets of London for lack of police and men are dying unnecessarily because cancer screening programmes are inadequate, it’s time Britain started reassessing whether some of this bloated aid budget could be given to more worthwhile causes.