Humanitarian alert as Boris set to halve aid to war-torn Yemen

BORIS JOHNSON is preparing to provoke a storm of protest by cutting in half the aid budget to wartorn Yemen, the Evening Standard has learned.

A cutback from £187 million this year to around £90 million is set to be announced at a United Nations pledging conference by Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly.

Senior Conservative MPs said a cut on such a scale could deepen the world’s gravest humanitarian catastrophe and bolster terrorist group al Qaeda which is based there.

Andrew Mitchell, the former Tory chief whip, said MPs would be raising questions with Foreign Office ministers tomorrow. “The Yemen cut is unspeakable, incomprehensible and probably contrary to the will of Parliament,” he said.

“This means essentially that four million people, mainly children, will be continuing the slow agonising and obscene process of starving to death.”

Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Commons defence committee, said: “It is not just the largest humanitarian challenge in the world, it is also the fact that al Qaeda is taking full advantage of the absence of any government. It is an unwise

step. This is our first big test with an invigorated White House wanting to rejuvenate western resolve. It is not the message we should be sending.”

About 60 senior Tories have already signalled unease about the Government’s bids to cull the annual budget for aid spending, which was written in law by David Cameron’s government at a target level of 0.7 per cent of GDP.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak last year announced he intends to cut £4 billion from the target, which comes on top of a reduction of around £2.9 billion due to the Covid-19 pandemic depressing

GDP. The Government is likely to face a Commons vote on the aid cuts and Mr Mitchell said it “may be very well not be able to win”.

Sir Mark Lowcock, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, recently warned that the humanitarian situation in the Yemen “is about to fall off a cliff”.

The Foreign Office declined to comment ahead of the announcement, due late this afternoon. Britain has been the biggest giver of aid to the crisis, helping at least 500,000 vulnerable people buy food and essentials each month.