Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
AID MERGER ‘MEANS MORE CHILDREN DIE’
PM’S plan blasted as ‘wrong & regressive’
BORIS Johnson has been warned children will be among those killed by famine and disease as a result of his “wrong and regressive” plans to scrap the overseas aid ministry.
The Prime Minister revealed a merger of the Department for International Development with the Foreign Office in the Commons yesterday.
He justified it by telling MPS current aid spending is treated like “some giant cashpoint in the sky”.
And he claimed the existing regime, launched by Labour in 1997, means “an inherent risk of our left and right hands working independently”.
Lib Dem MP Layla Moran accused him of politicising aid, saying: “This is a shameless gift to the Tory right wing. Children in the world’s poorest countries will pay the price and may die as a result.”
Tory ex-pm David Cameron branded the plans “a mistake”, saying: “The end of DFID will mean less expertise, less voice for development and ultimately less respect for the UK overseas.”
And Labour ex-pm Tony Blair said: “I am dismayed. We created DFID to [help project] British soft power… helping millions to be relieved of poverty and killer diseases. Wrong and regressive move.” The merger brings our £15billion overseas aid budget under the Foreign Secretary. But Oxfam chief Danny Sriskandarajah said: “The Foreign Office may be excellent at diplomacy but it has a patchy record of aid delivery and is not as transparent as DFID.
“This puts politics above the needs of the poorest and will mean more die unnecessarily from hunger and disease.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer said the move was “a distraction” from woeful handling of the pandemic. And Lib Dem leadership hopeful Wera Hobhouse said it was “globally illiterate and morally reprehensible”.
EX-PM