Boris Johnson faces a challenge from his own Tory backbenchers to reverse a £4 billion cut to the UK’s international aid budget.
Tory rebels will try to use a Commons vote on Tuesday afternoon to force the Prime Minister to honour an election pledge on foreign aid spending.
MPs will vote on the Government’s decision to cut funding for official development assistance (ODA) from 0.7 per cent of gross national income to 0.5 per cent.
Rebels claim they have the numbers to reverse the cut but some have been bought off by promises from chancellor Rishi Sunak that he will restore international aid as the economy improves.
The Prime Minister triggered outrage last year by announcing he was abandoning the commitment to 0.7 per cent which is written in law and was restated in the 2019 Conservative manifesto,
The move has met fierce resistance on the Conservative benches, with former prime minister Theresa May and ex-international development secretary Andrew Mitchell among prominent opponents of the cut.
Mitchell warned his colleagues not to be “hoodwinked” by Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s statement on the conditions for the return to 0.7 per cent arguing it was a “fiscal trap”.
He said: “It is, frankly, staggering that the only cut the Government has made is to spending to help the poorest people on the planet in the middle of a pandemic, when this amounts to approximately one per cent of the borrowing on Covid in the last year.”
Labour’s Shadow international development secretary Preet Kaur Gill said: “Labour opposes this shameful attempt by the Government to weasel out of their commitments to supporting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable during a global pandemic.
Kaur Gill said: “The Chancellor’s proposal would lead to an indefinite cut to the aid budget and is not in our national interest.
“Cuts to international aid will leave the very poorest weaker in the fight against the threats of poverty, climate change and the current pandemic.”
To sign up to the Daily Record Politics newsletter, click here.
