‘ Overseas aid cut protects jobs’

FOREIGN aid is being slashed by £ 4billion to protect jobs and public services in the UK, said Rishi Sunak.

An overseas development minister quit in protest over the move as senior Tories warned it harms the UK’s international standing.

But the Chancellor said it was “difficult to justify to the British people” when borrowing has hit the highest peacetime levels on record.

Mr Sunak insisted the reduction from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent is temporary and will be reversed when the fiscal situation allows. He added: “This country has always, and will always be, open and outwardlooking, leading in solving the world’s toughest problems. But during a domestic fiscal emergency, when we need to prioritise limited resources on jobs and public services, sticking rigidly to spending 0.7 per cent of our national income on overseas aid is difficult to justify especially when we’re seeing the highest peacetime levels of borrowing on record.”

Around £ 10billion will still go to overseas development in 2021. Mr Sunak said the UK will remain as the second highest aid donor in the G7, above France, Italy, Japan, Canada and the United States.

The 0.7 per cent target was set by the United Nations in 1970 and enshrined in UK law by former Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015.

Baroness Sugg, a former aide to Mr Cameron, quit as sustainable development minister, branding the decision “fundamentally wrong”.

While former aid secretary Andrew Mitchell said slashing aid will cause 100,000 preventable deaths, mainly among children. “This is a choice I am not prepared to make,” he said.