The Daily Telegraph

Foreign aid spend to remain below target until at least 2027, despite manifesto pledge

- By Daniel Martin Deputy political editor

BRITAIN will not return to its target of spending 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid for at least six years, Jeremy Hunt said.

Rishi Sunak lowered the amount the UK spends on aid to 0.5 per cent of GDP in the wake of the Covid pandemic – alongside a pledge that it would return to its usual level by 2024-25.

But the Chancellor told MPS that the public finances had suffered a “significan­t shock” which meant spending would not return to 0.7 per cent until 2027-28 or perhaps even later. The move will save around £4billion a year.

This would appear to go against the Tories’ manifesto commitment at the 2019 election, which said: “We will proudly maintain our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on developmen­t, and do more to help countries receiving aid become self-sufficient.” The 0.7 per cent aid commitment was introduced by David Cameron as part of his bid to rebrand the Conservati­ves and prove they were not the “nasty party”.

Speaking in the Commons yesterday, Mr Hunt said that even though the budget will be kept down, Britain still spends more on aid as a proportion of its national income than all but two other countries in the G7. “Another important internatio­nal commitment is to overseas aid,” he said.

“The Office for Budget Responsibi­lity’s forecasts show a significan­t shock to public finances, so it will not be possible to return to the 0.7 per cent target until the fiscal situation allows.

“We remain fully committed to that target, and the plans I have set out today assume that official developmen­t assistance spending will remain around 0.5 per cent for the forecast period.”

He added: “As a percentage of gross national income, we were the thirdhighe­st donor in the G7 last year, and I am proud that our aid commitment has saved thousands of lives around the world.” Mr Hunt said he looked forward to working closely with the new Secretary of State for Internatio­nal Developmen­t, Andrew Mitchell, “to make sure that we continue to play a leadership role in tackling global poverty”.

It is enshrined in law that aid spending should amount to 0.7 per cent of GDP. But during the Covid crisis, this was temporaril­y lowered to 0.5 per cent to reflect the hit to the economy and the huge cost of furlough and other schemes.

Last year, when he was Chancellor, Mr Sunak announced that aid spending would increase to 0.7 per cent again by 2024-25.

However, this decision could now be scrapped, with aid spending not returning to its normal level until 2027-28. It emerged earlier this month that the government is set to breach its 0.5 per cent cap on foreign aid spending because so much of the budget is being used to pay for asylum seekers in the United Kingdom.

Mr Hunt admitted there will be an overspend of £1billion or so in each of the next three years, pushing aid spending to an estimated 0.55 per cent.

Earlier this year the huge jump in spending on refugees and asylum seekers prompted the Foreign Office to suspend all non-essential spending on humanitari­an and developmen­t aid overseas, leading to cuts to UK projects around the globe.

 ?? ?? Andrew Mitchell, the new Internatio­nal Developmen­t Secretary, in Downing Street
Andrew Mitchell, the new Internatio­nal Developmen­t Secretary, in Downing Street

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