Cutting foreign aid to hike spending on defence means the UK is on course to spend half its overseas development budget on dealing with the Channel crisis, Sir Keir Starmer has been warned.
The Prime Minister’s plans to cut the foreign aid budget from 0.5 per cent of gross national income to 0.3 per cent in 2027 suggests an increasing proportion of the cash will be spent on refugees or asylum seekers in the UK.
In 2023, the UK spent more than £4.2bn – 28 per cent – of overseas development assistance on refugees or asylum seekers in the UK or other donor countries, with more than half (£2.5bn) spent by the Home Office on accommodation including controversial hotels for Channel migrants.
Cutting the aid budget to 0.3 per cent of national income would leave it at £8.5bn, according to calculations using the latest Commons library figures, suggesting around half could be taken up on asylum and refugee costs unless the Government succeeds in significantly reducing the backlog of claims, hotel use and Channel crossings and therefore total costs.
Government sources admitted that an increasing proportion of the aid budget will be spent on asylum unless ministers succeed in their goal of reducing costs, as the Prime Minister said only that “processing claims” would “bring those bills down”.
Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of the Commons Development Committee, told The i Paper: “I’m extremely concerned that unless Home Office spend on refugees and asylum seekers drops dramatically, it looks like half the remaining aid budget will go on their hotel costs rather than supporting the poorest in the world – as is intended.”
Mark Leonard, a member of the Foreign Office’s Soft Power Council and director of European Council on Foreign Relations praised the move to increase defence spending but also called for a shift in “the majority of the remaining development spending towards the most pressing priorities in countries facing urgent need rather than keeping it in the UK to prop up the backlogs in a failing asylum policy”.
Earlier in the Commons, Starmer said: “In recent years the development budget was redirected towards asylum backlogs, paying for hotels, so as we’re clearing that backlog at a record pace, there are efficiencies that will reduce the need to cut spending on our overseas programme.
“But nonetheless it remains a cut and I will not pretend otherwise.”
It came as Labour former foreign secretary David Miliband warned that cutting the aid budget could add to the global migration crisis as “the danger is that without humanitarian help more people will flee their homes to seek security”.
Miliband, now president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, said UK aid “reduces displacement of people” as well as helping those vulnerable to conflict, climate change and extreme poverty, as well as building resilience in fragile states.
He said the £6bn cut in aid spending was a “blow to Britain’s proud reputation as a global humanitarian and development leader” and would have “far reaching” and “devastating” consequences for the 300m people in the world in humanitarian need.
“Now is the time to step up and tackle poverty, conflict and insecurity, not further reduce the aid budget.”
Johnson Gareth Redmond-King, head of the international programme at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said: “We import two fifths of our food from overseas, much of which we simply can’t grow here in the UK, and around half of that from areas most vulnerable to extremes driven by climate change, like floods and heat waves that destroy crops.
“We are mutually-dependent on these countries, with climate finance paid for from the aid budget supporting the UK’s food security as well as the livelihoods of the farmers who produce that food.
“Let’s be clear this can be life and death for struggling communities and this reduction could make meeting the UK’s climate finance commitments even more challenging.”
ActionAid, a charity that works with women and girls living in poverty, described Sir Keir’s decision to slash the aid budget as “reckless” and said it is “profoundly shocked and disappointed” by the Government’s decision
Save the Children UK similarly said it is “stunned” by the move, labelling it “a betrayal of the world’s most vulnerable children and the UK’s national interest”.
Water Aid called the shift in policy a “cruel betrayal” of people in poverty.
The Government believes it is on track to deliver £400m in asylum support savings in 2024/25.
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