Gates and Co stump up £100m to cover Boris’s foreign aid cuts

BILLIONAIRES, led by Bill Gates, have pledged to cover some of the cost of Boris Johnson’s foreign aid cuts.

A consortium of charities has agreed to provide emergency funding of nearly £100million to save disease prevention projects and provide family planning.

The decision to put money into projects that were funded by the UK before the controversial £4billion cut to aid is aimed at embarrassing the Prime Minister.

Among the charities behind the oneyear funding are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation.

Around 50 Tory MPs, including Theresa May, the former prime minister, are opposed to the cut. They want a vote on the Government’s decision to renege on its manifesto promise to keep the legal commitment of devoting 0.7 per cent of national income to foreign aid.

Ministers want the percentage to drop to 0.5 per cent for a year.

Last night Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: ‘This emergency funding is welcome and desperately needed, but I continue to pray for the restoration of our promise to those living in extreme poverty around the world: which was to love them as our neighbour through our commitment to the 0.7 per cent aid spending target.’

The temporary funding will support countries most affected by the cuts, including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Charities have said that the cuts have put at risk sexual reproductive health services and supplies, including contraceptives, and that this undermines the Government’s goal to keep girls in school.

Kate Hampton, of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, said: ‘We are stepping in so that when the Government returns to its commitments next year as promised, the progress made will not have been lost.’

Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs committee, said: ‘When Britain withdraws, others step in.

‘By cutting our aid, we have given states such as China and Russia an opportunity to expand their influence at Britain’s expense.’

A Government spokesman said: ‘The UK will spend more than £10billion to improve global health, fight poverty and tackle climate change this year, making us one of the biggest aid donors in the G7.’

He called the cut a ‘tough but necessary’ decision because of the impact of the pandemic.