Rishi’s right: Charity DOES begin at home

WHEREVER people find themselves in peril, whether through natural disaster, war or political upheaval, this country is always among the first to offer a helping hand.

That is not about to change. Even after the newly-announced reduction in the aid budget from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of national income, Britain will remain in the very top rank of the world’s most charitable nations.

We will still be spending a greater proportion of GDP than France, Canada, Italy and Japan – and three times more than the US. Then there are the additional billions we donate to international peacekeeping and IMF poverty reduction programmes.

This powerful desire to support the underdog is a great British trait and something to be immensely proud of.

But at a time of economic crisis, Rishi Sunak is right to bring some of this charity back home. Predictably, the liberal elite is in uproar. A largely unknown junior minister has resigned,

Tony Blair and other ex-prime ministers and peers clutch their pearls, and the charity industry is in a funk of moral outrage. Have they any notion of how far removed they have become from the ordinary people of Britain, the vast majority of whom welcome this diversion of resources?

The £4 billion saving from this aid cut will pay for a new ‘levelling up fund’, used to help revivify and restore pride in some of Britain’s left-behind towns. Isn’t that a better cause than subsidising Chinese rice production, or despotic regimes in Africa?

The 0.7 per cent figure was always an arbitrary one. Far better that we provide aid where and when it’s needed rather than peg it to some artificial target.

After the reduction our international development budget will still be £10 billion a year – not to mention providing Covid vaccines to poorer countries on a non-profit basis.

Could anyone in good faith really describe that as uncharitable?