Perhaps we’re not so global

BACK in 2016, we were promised a future as Global Britain.

In North East England, we desperately need good access to export markets for the many goods produced in our region. We really need policies, which will project our country on the global stage in a positive light.

In his Spending Review statement, made to the House of Commons on Wednesday, November 25, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that there would be a cut to our Foreign Aid. So, what will happen as a result of the cut from 0.7% of the nation’s GDP to 0.5%?

Well, it will cause a lot of unnecessary suffering, pain and death is the simple answer. To put some flesh on that, it will mean that there will be a £4bn cut in aid for the world’s poorest. Andrew Mitchell, Tory Development minister under David Cameron has described this as a “massacre” of the aid budget, a massacre which will have many victims. These will include nearly a million girls who will be deprived of an education. It will include four million people being deprived of clean drinking water.

Perhaps worst of all, especially during a pandemic, it will mean 5.6 million fewer children getting vaccinations, leading to as many as 100,000 avoidable deaths.

On top of the unnecessary deaths, we will lose respect and influence in the world and it will be harder for us to strike the trade deals we desperately need as a country and especially in a region like North East England. The North East is a major exporting region and we really do need the UK to have a good image across the world. This doesn’t look like the Global Britain we were promised after the EU referendum.

Peter Sagar, Newcastle