UK POLITICIANS CONDEMN PLAN TO CUT OVERSEAS AID

British Chancellor Rishi Sunak has faced a furious backlash after announcing he plans to cut the overseas aid budget from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent until the financial situation in Britain improves, Isobel Frosham reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

A total of 10 billion pounds ($13.3 billion) is going to be handed out in 2021 to help fund humanitarian aid, crisis relief and bilateral aid in poorer countries, Sunak said. This is a reduction of around 4 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) from the amount previously promised by the government. He made the announcement in Parliament as he revealed Britain’s spending plans for the next year.

But the announcement led to uproar in Parliament’s House of Lords, with a minister resigning from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government and a letter being sent to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, warning him that if the reduction went ahead, it would be in violation of British law.

Baroness Liz Sugg, a minister for the Foreign Office, announced she was resigning from Johnson's government. In a letter to Johnson, she said: "Many in our country face severe challenges as a result of the pandemic ... but I believe it is fundamentally wrong to abandon our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on development."

Baroness Anelay, a former Foreign Office minister who chairs the Lords’ International Relations and Defence Committee, also opposed the plan. She said: “The UK’s aid has already been reduced by 2.9 billion pounds this year as a result of the decrease in Gross National Income resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. A further cut from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of GNI from 2021 would result in a significant further decrease in ODA at a time when this budget is already strained." Former prime minister David Cameron, who enacted the 0.7 per cent as law in 2015, also weighed in on the cuts, and called the decision a "sad moment."