Foreign aid to help troops who fought for Britain

FOREIGN aid cash will be used to help Commonwealth veterans who fought for Britain in the Second World War, Penny Mordaunt will announce today.

The International Development Secretary will declare that it is only right that those who have served the country ‘deserve our support and protection in their twilight years’.

Miss Mordaunt, who is herself a Royal Navy reservist, will make the pledge as she promises to increasingly work with the Ministry of Defence to spend the £14billion aid budget.

In a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank in London, she will say: ‘I know that the connection between UK Aid and our Armed Forces is deep and strong. Defence, development and diplomacy are reliant on each other. I want the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence to develop our capabilities together.

‘Whether it’s civil contingencies at home or humanitarian crises overseas, we can support and

‘Deserve our support and protection’

inform each other to better meet the challenges we both face.’

Miss Mordaunt will commit to supporting Commonwealth veterans, who served the UK Armed Forces prior to their country’s independence – including in the Second World War – and are now living below the poverty line. She will say: ‘Across the Commonwealth, over many years, many have answered the call to serve in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.

‘But charities believe there may now be up to 8,500 Commonwealth veterans, or their widows, who could be reliant on charitable support to live.

‘No one could possibly think that’s right. Those who have served our nation deserve our support and protection in their twilight years.’

Miss Mordaunt will say that by working together, Dfid and the MoD will be better able to ‘improve our preparedness for extreme weather events and, in particular, the hurricane season in the Caribbean’.

In November, the UK secured changes to international rules which will allow aid cash to be sent to hurricane-stricken overseas territories in future. There was uproar last year after it emerged that money from the foreign aid budget could not go to British territories flattened by Hurricane Irma in September.