Britain’s aid millions to China lack ‘transparency’, says watchdog

MINISTERS have not been “sufficiently transparent” about how much aid money is still being sent to China, the aid watchdog said.

Last year, Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary at the time, announced that aid to the Communist superpower would be cut by 95 per cent.

However, Dr Tamsyn Barton, chief commissioner of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, said that millions were still being sent to the country, but the Government would not reveal how much.

She also warned that huge amounts of aid money may be being lost to fraud because of a botched Whitehall merger.

Dr Barton said she was concerned about cuts to the anti-fraud team after the Department for International Development was merged into the Foreign Office.

Mr Raab had pledged to dramatically reduce the amount sent to China following concerns over security, human rights and the fact that it has the second-largest economy in the world. Some of the money was being used to help Chinese firms to compete with British counterparts.

Dr Barton said the latest published figures from 2020-21 suggest more than £60million was being sent to China each year, but said ministers had not yet revealed the figure from 2021-22.

Although it was possible that 95 per cent had been cut from aid sent out by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, she said it was unclear whether funding sent out from other departments such as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy had fallen by a similar amount.

She said 40 per cent of UK diplomats’ time in China was still being spent dealing with development projects.

“We have always felt that the Government hasn’t been sufficiently transparent as to the aid that they are spending in countries like China and India,” Dr Barton said. “There was insufficient transparency. They are not publishing all the details where they should be.

Why should it not be clear what they are spending the money on in China?”

She said unknown amounts were still being handed to China by the business department to pay for research.

On China, Dr Barton said: “It’s a good example of where it’s insufficiently transparent and doesn’t appear to be in accord with what was promised.”

She added: “As far as we can see they are still spending money on research in China and it didn’t appear to have been cut by 95 per cent. It does appear that FCDO funding has fallen by 95 per cent but remember they promised to cut in 2011 all funding to China. They don’t have budgetary aid going to the Chinese government but they do have research aid going to Chinese universities, which may be perfectly justifiable, but can that not be paid for otherwise? Does it have to come from the aid budget?”

An FCDO spokesman said: “We cut FCDO aid programming to China by 95 per cent in 2021, focusing the remaining funding on specific programmes that support British values around open societies and human rights.”