Need to save cash, chaps? Try slashing foreign aid to this lot

A NEW row broke out over the bloated aid budget last night, after the Foreign Office revealed that British taxpayers’ money has been spent on projects such as training for tribal chieftains in Central Africa’s Cameroon and the Solomon Islands paralympic team.

The controversy came as figures released last week revealed that the foreign aid bill jumped by £1.2 billion last year. It now stands at a record £13.3 billion. The increase – at a time when budgets at home for hospitals and schools are under intense pressure – came after an upward revision in the estimated size of the British economy.

Under a target introduced by former Prime Minister David Cameron, Ministers are committed to sending 0.7 per cent of our national income overseas every year.

Although the lion’s share of the money is spent by the Department for International Development, about ten per cent is handed out by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO).

According to a list released by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s department, in the year up to 2016 it dished out money to more than 1,500 overseas projects.

These include developing the rugby skills of disadvantaged youngsters in South Africa and building links between creative industries in the UK and Peru to ‘increase the appetite for collaboration’.

The costs ranged from a few hundred pounds – such as the £608 given to the Solomon Islands paralympic squad in the Pacific – up to hundreds of thousands for projects, such as £221,912 to help the ‘energy efficiency’ of Brazilian industry.

Critics of the aid budget noted that a number of the projects were designed to help old people overseas – such as a £5,000 scheme to reduce age half of councils have reduced the Meals On Wheels scheme for the elderly since 2010, due to budget cuts. Other projects mentioned on the FCO list include helping the Albanian police to ‘improve their media handling of major crime incidents, including through a study visit to Manchester’, promoting ‘engagement on judicial ethics’ in the repressive African state of Eritrea, and thousands of pounds on developing the technology to harness the energy potential of waste cooking oil in Indonesia. One of the reasons why the foreign aid spend has jumped so sharply is that under new European Union accounting rules, the value of the black economy, such as drugs and prostitution, was included for the first time. It meant that the Foreign Office’s share of the aid budget increased by £121 million.

The Mail on Sunday has long campaigned to reduce the 0.7 per cent target.

Tory MP Andrew Rosindell said: ‘I am sure that each of these projects has its own merit, but there is just not the political support for spending these vast sums of money.

‘The problem is the rigid 0.7 per cent target, which means we are forever trying to find new ways to spend the money. We need to abandon that target.’

An FCO spokeswoman said: ‘The FCO works to deliver the 2015 aid strategy to tackle global challenges in the national interest.

‘FCO projects address issues such as conflict reduction, increasing stability, promoting human rights, mitigating climate change and promoting democratic and economic reforms that create more prosperous societies as well as new markets for UK businesses to trade with and invest in.

‘This is firmly in Britain’s interest.’

‘No support for these vast sums of money’ ‘We need to abandon the 0.7 per cent target’