Foreign aid as ‘bill soars to £15m’
£33.9million of the Department for International Development (Dfid) budget last year failed to meet the same measure. Another £575million from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy did not comply.
In addition, of the BBC World Service’s budget of £339million in 2017, more than £306million did not meet the criteria.
Combined, this spending came to £1.541billion in 2017/18, meaning total aid would be just under 0.8 per cent of GNI.
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson backed the report, adding: “I think that what Bob Seely is saying in his pamphlet is that we can make sure that that 0.7 per cent, huge sum of money, was spent more in line with Britain’s political, commercial and diplomatic interests.”
He called for a review of the rules for development spending.
A Dfid spokeswoman said the UK had already helped reform the rules.
She said the 0.7 per cent commitment “contributes to Britain’s reputation as a development superpower” and Dfid “seeks not to just spend money well, but to show it could not be spent better in the national interest”.
Ex-international development secretary Andrew Mitchell defended aid spending. Referring to Mr Johnson, Mr Mitchell said: “Boris is a bit like a sort of medieval pirate whose eye has alighted on this plump Spanish galleon loaded with bullion and he wants to board it and plunder it.”
Oxfam’s Jon Date said Mr Seely’s overhaul would be a “disaster”. “The primary purpose of aid is – and should continue to be – to fight poverty. Any other approach risks aid being spent badly and jeopardising the lives of the world’s most vulnerable.” He added that rejecting global aid rules would be self-defeating.