UK foreign secretary to cut girls’ education budget, says former minister
The UK is set to cut the country’s aid budget for girls’ education by more than 40 per cent, a former government minister claimed.
Baroness Liz Sugg challenged her former boss, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, to confirm the decision.
It was also reported that the UK would slash funding for clean water and sanitation projects by 80 per cent, a decision campaigners described as “savage”.
Mr Raab has also indicated that UK aid to Africa would be reduced to a third of what it was two years ago.
It is part of the government’s recent decision to reduce overseas aid from 0.7 per cent of national income to 0.5 per cent.
Ms Sugg, who resigned from her post as Foreign Office Minister last year when the aid cuts were announced, said the government was planning to close its Women’s Integrated Sexual Health programme.
She said it would cut funding to the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition by 70 to 80 per cent.
“Sexual and reproductive health spending was long a cause championed by Britain around the world and a really important part of keeping girls in school for 12 years of quality education,” Ms Sugg told Britain’s House of Lords international relations select committee.
Lord Ahmad, the minister responsible for reproductive health care, did not deny the reductions when challenged by Ms Sugg. Mr Raab said he did not recognise the figures, but admitted no area was immune to cuts.
On Monday, former UK international development secretary Rory Stewart said the government was being “deeply, deeply misleading” when it said it had an aspiration to return to the 0.7 per cent spending requirement.
“There are an enormous number of voters for Boris Johnson that do not want to be spending a large amount of money on international aid,” Mr Stewart told the defence think tank Rusi.
“It is unlikely that having got a huge amount of applause from cutting, he will return to the 0.7 per cent.”
Aid agencies say it is impossible to plan for large aid cuts in the current financial year with individual country budgets still unannounced.