Tackle third-world services – at home
More than a few wry chuckles at the breakfast table over Penny Mordaunt’s article on foreign aid for this paper on Monday. “We will continue to prioritise investments in saving lives, tackling undernutrition, improving health and getting kids a quality education,” said the International Development Secretary. “Our focus will be on helping… build sustainable health and education systems…”
Well, sustainable health and education systems would certainly be nice. In Britain.
Let’s start with benighted Cumbria, South Wales and East Anglia, and then see what cash we’ve got left over for Uganda and Nigeria, shall we?
Honestly, I can’t think of another issue on which the Government is so badly out of step with public opinion. Why, we wonder, is the UK sending a staggering £13.4billion to countries like India, China and Pakistan when we don’t have the money to provide decent care for our own old people and hospitals are struggling to cope?
In 2016, Britain gave £1.5billion in foreign aid to “middle-income” countries. Pakistan, which has a space and nuclear weapons programme, received £463million and what did we get in return?
Meanwhile, I have two friends – one in her 60s, the other in his 40s – who have been waiting for over a year, in considerable discomfort, for hiatus hernia operations. Do their hearts soar at Ms Mordaunt’s proud assertion that “Britain is a development superpower”, or do they think it might be preferable for routine operations to be carried out within their lifetime?
In an irony that is lost on no one except our self-righteous political classes, the British people are increasingly at the mercy of Third World services
while generously bankrolling services in the Third World.
It’s good to see Ms Mordaunt is prepared to put pressure on corrupt foreign powers. But why is she still defending the arbitrary 0.7per cent of GDP foolishly enshrined in law by David Cameron’s government?
Cameron’s argument – that “we suffer the effects” when fragile states fail – applies just as forcefully here. Britain is the fifth most generous provider of aid, higher than Germany (0.41per cent) and France (0.36per cent). If we cut our contribution to the same level as the French, it would free up almost £7billion for services.
At present, we have the grotesque spectacle of the Department for International Development desperately trying to find things to chuck money at, while the Ministry of Defence shreds our marvellous Armed Forces and plans to cut 1,000 Royal Marines. Disgraceful.
The Tory Government needs to review warped priorities that see us paying for foreign schools and hospitals, leaving dodgy regimes more cash to spend on arms and Mercedes. Time to stop defending the indefensible, slash foreign aid and use the money where it belongs. At home.