Now the government has set out its spending plans for the next three years, we can see the true scale of the horrors to come from more than £5 billion of aid budget cuts – and the picture could not be bleaker.
When the prime minister announced his intention to slash international development spending to its lowest level this century many of us hoped the worst damage could be avoided. Instead, the Home Office will continue to raid the aid budget for the costs of housing asylum seekers in this country, instead of spending it on health, education and humanitarian programmes overseas as intended.
This means my party will continue to spend more than 20 per cent of this much smaller aid budget at home, here in the UK, just as we rightly criticised the Conservatives for doing – while the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) will see its share shrink by a third.
Actual aid spent on international work will sink below 0.25 per cent of national income – not the 0.3 per cent the prime minister promised – putting the UK near the bottom of the table for the world’s leading economies.
The price will be paid by the world’s poorest people, by the children no longer vaccinated against deadly yet preventable diseases, or able to go to school. Direct UK aid to many countries will stop altogether, and we already know that specific projects to support women and girls will be wiped out.
It is alarming that, even though the cuts have begun, FCDO has provided no clear vision of what will be sacrificed and what will be saved. Instead, the aid minister told the International Development Committee I chair that “everybody gets a cut” – exactly the sort of salami-slicing that inflicted such harm the last time cuts approaching this scale were made, at the start of this decade.
Do not make the mistake of believing this is a crisis that will only impact overseas. Britons too will feel the effects when these aid cuts leave us more exposed to pandemics spawned abroad – we all remember how Covid-19 travelled around the globe with terrifying speed – when broken economies tempt more desperate people to climb onto boats to Europe, when efforts to build stable societies are abandoned and terror threats reach our shores.
As the prime minister himself put it, when he opposed Tory aid cuts, this money goes “beyond moral obligation” because it “also helps build a more stable world and keeps us safer in the UK”. Those words ring just as true today.
We also know from the government’s own consultation on its promised “new approach to Africa” that African leaders have responded by saying the UK’s “reputation and credibility” will suffer alongside the communities we let down by pulling projects.
When the cuts were announced in February, the government had the chance to draw a line by ensuring the promised 0.3 per cent of national income for aid – however inadequate – really will be 0.3 spent on aid work. Instead, it is allowing that feeble floor to fall further, making the cuts even more horrendous to implement.
The Tories were forced to admit their aid cuts would cause lasting damage. Including more preventable deaths, thousands of children being left hungry and without proper healthcare, and women being left with no medical help after pregnancy complications.
My committee has already heard evidence that impact assessments will reveal the same appalling outcomes this time around. When they are published – as they must be – there will be nowhere for ministers to hide.
Sarah Champion is the Labour MP for Rotherham
This piece has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid series
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