When the integrated review was announced, many of us feared for the future of the UK’s contribution to international aid and development. The Prime Minister has made it clear previously that he placed little value on aid spending, remarking that the UK could not
“keep spending huge sums of British taxpayers’ money as though we were some independent Scandinavian NGO.”
Rather than recognising the UK’s moral duty to help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, the Prime Minister’s ambition was to use aid money to promote global Britain and advance the UK’s political, commercial and diplomatic interests. It was expected that he would at least go through the pretence of a review, but with the integrated review paused due to covid-19 and without any external consultation, the Prime Minister announced that he would abolish the world-leading Department for International Development. The Government dismissed the opinion of experts, including over 200 non-governmental organisations, who called on the Prime Minister to reverse his decision, and instead pursued his long-term desire to merge the Department into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The Chancellor compounded this when he announced that the UK would reduce its aid commitment from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income—a shocking abrogation of responsibility and morally reprehensible, particularly in this global health crisis. The Chancellor shamefully used covid and protecting public finances as his excuse for this reckless and inhumane cut. He conveniently forgot, however, that a windfall had been delivered to the defence budget the previous week. Westminster once again put bombs before bairns. Huge sums are already being lost due to the fall in the amount
of GNI, and this further cut means that the aid budget is going to be cut by up to a third. Let us be in no doubt: this is devastating. In the midst of a global pandemic, we should be stepping up, not stepping away. The UN has already warned that covid-19 will set back development gains by decades, and millions have been pushed into poverty.
The reality of these cuts is that each year 5.5 million fewer children are being immunised and 105,000 more lives are being lost, while almost 1 million fewer children are being supported to gain a decent education and 7.6 million fewer women and girls are being provided with modern methods of family planning. Crucially, until legislation is brought forward and enacted, it is the Government’s legal responsibility to ensure that 0.7% of GNI is spent on official development assistance. Anything else would be unlawful and this House must hold them to account on that. Reports suggest that the Government will delay any legislation until after the G7 summit in June. Reneging on the 0.7% target is just another example of the UK abandoning its international commitments.
The Government are embarrassing themselves on the world stage as they become increasingly isolated and insular, with the Prime Minister breaking his own manifesto commitments to imitate and appease his Brexit allies Cummings and Farage. This mindset has driven the Government’s decisions on international development in the integrated review—a mindset that has routinely advocated using the aid budget to build a new royal yacht Britannia; that believes a strategic priority of UK aid is to build the trading and investment partners of the future; and that encourages spending on spies, enhanced cyber-weapons and artificial intelligence-enabled drones rather than on alleviating extreme poverty. This is not a global Britain; it is a little Britain. No matter how many Union Jacks the UK Government wave or parade in front of our televisions, this mindset is best described as Hobbesian: being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
Finally, with the UK seemingly intent on breaking its commitments and abandoning the world’s most vulnerable people when they need us most, we in the Scottish National party will continue to oppose this mindset, and Scotland will soon fulfil its obligations as an independent nation, delivering aid for the world’s poorest as part of the global effort to eradicate poverty.
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