‘Stop sending aid to China and spend it on defence’
SENIOR Tories have warned Britain must stop giving foreign aid and business investment to the “dangerous” Chinese state.
Increasing aggression towards the West from Beijing, along with Iran and Russia, poses the greatest security threat in a generation and must be tackled head on, MPs say.
They called for an end to aid to China and the repatriation of key industries to Britain.
Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick said it was “ludicrous” that the UK sends hundreds of millions of pounds to China and other nuclear powers.
Figures show Beijing received £48million in UK aid in 2021-22. And Mr Jenrick said in the Mail On Sunday: “We have no choice but to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP to deliver the uplift we need to defend ourselves.”
He added this cannot be at the expense of NHS, police or pensions budgets but involves trade-offs.
Bloated
The former Cabinet member called for a relentless pro-growth approach with liberalised planning to get the UK building, with major reforms of welfare and of the “increasingly bloated” public sector.
Mr Jenrick said the money should be found in the short term by cutting foreign aid and redirecting money to defence. He said: “While the aid budget does outstanding work alleviating extreme poverty, a significant chunk of ‘development’ spend is incoherent and wasteful.
“It’s ludicrous we send hundreds of millions to nuclear powers China, India and Pakistan.
“Roughly a third of our aid goes on the ballooning costs of supporting asylum-seekers in the UK.
“If we ended the abuse of the system by economic migrants and closed the farcical asylum hotels, billions of pounds can be freed.”
He said only 10 per cent of the aid goes on humanitarian emergencies. Halving the budget would free about £7billion a year that could be used to boost defence spending above 2.5% of national growth.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith called on the Government to repatriate key industries from China.
The ex-Tory leader said “almost everything” linked to net zero is run by China, including batteries, electric cars and wind-farm parts.
Diversifying
Sir Iain, one of more than 40 MPs hacked by Beijing, added: “The Government needs to be able to say, ‘we’re not doing any of this with China’. We should be diversifying business and industry and bring advanced manufacturing back to the UK.”