Foreign aid cash better spent on keeping us safe

Well done to The Mail on Sunday for successfully campaigning to persuade the Government to change its mind about our overseas aid spending.

Many of the schemes are questionable, and the spiralling bill would have reached a staggering £16billion a year by 2020. The Government is right to divert tens of millions of pounds to fund the war on terror. We urgently need to prioritise our homeland security. Dennis Forbes Grattan,

Aberdeen Our foreign aid extravagance has got way out of hand. We have so many problems to fix at home without handing out money like confetti. For instance, the country’s roads are pockmarked with potholes. If Britain were a company, the accounts would look pretty poor, so I’m glad your campaign has had a powerful impact on the Government.

John Pearce, Tunbridge Wells, Kent Congratulations to The Mail on Sunday for campaigning to reduce the foreign aid budget. Naive do-gooder Sir Bob Geldof helped to foster this culture of throwing money at impoverished countries, pulling on the heartstrings of the nation despite himself amassing a multi-million-pound empire.

Such money should be used to create infrastructures for wellrun societies. Instead, recipient countries are still struggling, despite the aid, because there is so much corruption. Maybe we should demand political reform in exchange for our aid in future.

J. Bell, London My main concern is that we spend too much on defence, while we are trying to save billions from the NHS budget. Italy has nearly as much coastline to defend as Britain and is nearer to many potential danger zones. However, we are spending £46billion on defence this year, while Italy is spending half that amount.

Our defence budget is the fifth highest in the world. Maybe there should be a referendum on what people think of that. Mervyn Williams, Waterloo, Huddersfield You reported that the new airport in St Helena has been said to be the ‘worst foreign aid project in living memory’. But, in the 21st Century, why should the loyal British subjects who live on St Helena be deprived of links with the outside world?

And having an operational airfield nearer to the Falkland Islands will benefit UK interests; we will be able to react faster to any threat to them. UK interests in the South Atlantic are paramount.

John Fraser, Southport, Merseyside