Aid laws prohibit Irma relief
THERESA MAY has been urged to change the law on aid spending after it emerged that Britain cannot use its £13billion aid budget to help its overseas territories devastated by Hurricane Irma.
MPS said it was “ludicrous” that rules set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and enshrined in UK law prevent aid money going to Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Under OECD rules the island nations are classed as too wealthy to qualify for overseas aid, even though their economies have been shattered along with their buildings and infrastructure.
James Duddridge, the Conservative MP, who until last year was a Foreign Office minister with responsibility for the Caribbean and British Overseas Territories, said: “It is absolutely essential we change these rules.
“It is ludicrous that we spend £13billion of aid but we cannot use any of that money to help our overseas
territories. “The rules were put in place to avoid ‘trade for aid’ deals with wealthier nations but they are outdated and should be replaced.”
He said that the laws on aid spending were primarily designed to regulate the way money was handed over to African countries and did not take into account fragile island nations that might not be classed as poor but could be wiped out by natural disasters.
The Government has so far committed to spend £57 million on disaster relief for the islands, which must be found from other funds.
Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday visited Anguilla and said: “You can’t be but affected by the scale of devastation the people of Anguilla have endured.”
He added: “There are things we are going to have to do in the long term to make this island more economically self-sufficient and even more resilient, and we will certainly be thinking about that.”
The Department for International Development, which is overseeing the disaster relief work, said the Government had committed money and resources regardless of which pot the money was going to come from.
A spokesman said: “Reform of Official Development Assistance was one of the Conservative manifesto pledges and we are looking at how the current rules apply to disasters.”
Britain pledged £57million in assistance and, up to yesterday, had sent 10 flights of aid since Friday to its affected Caribbean territories, the British Virgin Islands and the Anguilla archipelago, where six people died in the storm.