Johnson narrowly avoids defeat over aid spending cut by 35 votes

Boris Johnson has narrowly avoided defeat over the cut to overseas aid after Conservative MPs rebelled to join opposition parties in rejecting a motion that Labour says will ensure an “indefinite” reduction in spending.

Rishi Sunak announced a cut to the aid budget last year from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income. In the face of significant opposition from backbench colleagues and opposition parties, ministers today allowed a vote on the cut.

But Keir Starmer said the motion today, to consider the Treasury update, was “typically slippery”, adding: “The House should have had the opportunity for a straight up-down vote on whether to approve or reject the government’s cut.”

He said Sunak made clear in his written update that if passed the motion would mean spending returning to 0.7% only when the country is no longer borrowing to fund day-to-day needs and the underlying level of public debt is falling.

The Labour leader told the House of Commons that the cut was “wrong”, and that the motion would mean an “indefinite” reduction to aid spending and break a 2019 Conservative election manifesto pledge.

“Nobody in this House is arguing for overseas aid to be maintained at the pre-pandemic levels during the downturn in strict terms. We all recognise that a contracting economy means a relative contraction in our aid budget,” he said.

“But what the Chancellor and Prime Minister are asking the House to agree goes beyond that – to impose a new target of 0.5% and to create entirely new criteria for ever returning to 0.7%.”

Starmer highlighted Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that debt will not fall as a proportion of GDP until 2024/25, arguing that the “double lock” proposed would mean aid spending would not return to 0.7% during this parliament.

He added that the conditions set out in the motion had only been met five times in the past 30 years and once in the past 20, and said: “Anyone voting tonight pretending to themselves it will be temporary – they are not looking at the facts.”

The opposition leader criticised Boris Johnson for breaking the Conservative 2019 general election manifesto promise to maintain the 0.7% contribution, and cited other broken promises including cuts to the armed forces and the Irish Sea border.

“It matters to British people that they can trust the Prime Minister to honour a clear commitment. It matters to the reputation around the global that the word of the British government will hold in the good times and the bad,” he said.

Challenged over the fact that the Labour government did not meet the 0.7% contribution, he stressed that the administrations “more than doubled it”, saying: “They set the goal and then successive Prime Ministers implemented that goal.”

With 333 votes for the motion put forward by the government and 298 against, MPs confirmed the formula proposed by the Chancellor and Prime Minister this afternoon. Had it been rejected, spending would have reverted to 0.7% in January.

The Prime Minister refused to take interventions from his own Tory backbenchers throughout his contribution this afternoon. The Labour leader told MPs that Johnson would have done so if he had “confidence in his arguments”.

Johnson claimed that the debate over overseas aid spending was “not an argument about principle” and “the only question is when we return to 0.7%”. He said Covid was an “economic hurricane never experienced in living memory”.

The Prime Minister insisted that the UK is “playing a vital role” in the rollout of Covid vaccines worldwide and that the government has “pledged more than any other country” towards promoting the education of girls.

30 Tory MPs supported an amendment to a bill last month that would have forced the government to meet the 0.7% commitment. The Speaker did not select the amendment at the time but said MPs should have a vote on the cut.

Theresa May today highlighted that the government promised in October last year – when the impact of Covid had been felt and money already borrowed – that it would honour its manifesto commitment on international aid.

She accused ministers of trying to “have it both ways” this afternoon by suggesting that the government cannot meet the 0.7% commitment this year but that the economy is doing well enough that it could be met very soon.

“I have never voted against a three-line whip from my party,” she said. “We made a promise to the poorest people in the world. The government has broken that promise. This motion means that promise may be broken for years to come. With deep regret, I will vote against the motion today.”

Labour’s Sarah Champion asked: “If the return to economic normality is getting closer, then why the need to return these extra tests, which are added roadblocks artfully placed by the Treasury in the track back to legally mandated level of 0.7%?”

The international development select committee chair said the tests set out for when international aid spending could return to pre-Covid levels “do nothing to prevent them dropping lower than 0.5%”.

The ‘double lock’ had been touted as a compromise by ministers, after a group of up to 50 Tory backbenchers and all opposition parties voiced concerns over the cut that charities have warned would lead to deaths and suffering overseas.

Tory backbencher Andrew Mitchell rejected that the motion today represented a compromise, instead dubbing it as a “fiscal trap for the unwary”. He added that it is “quite possible that these conditions will never be met”.

The former International Development Secretary accused the government of “literally taking away food from starving people” and said that “this is not who global Britain is”, adding: “It is worse than a crime – it is a mistake.”

Former Brexit Secretary and Conservative MP David Davis told Times Radio ahead of the vote this afternoon that “the government would have to pull my fingernails out to make me vote for their proposal today”.

24 Tories joined the 197 Labour MPs voting against the government motion this afternoon. They included Davis, Mitchell and May as well as Karen Bradley, Stephen Crabb, Tobias Ellwood, Damian Green, Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugendhat.

Several MPs highlighted that the £4bn cut to aid spending overseas represented just 1% of the sum borrowed by the government since the beginning of the Covid crisis.

Closing the debate for Labour today, Rachel Reeves compared other funds committed by the Chancellor since the pandemic began, highlighting the £37bn spent on the test and trace system and the £2bn spent on “crony contracts”.

“What exactly does it say about the priorities of this Conservative government?” she asked. “And why is the overseas aid budget being singled out for cuts by this government? Because it is ideological; it is not about value for money.”

Meeting the 0.7% of GNI contribution was enshrined in law in 2015 and it is an internationally recognised target. Charities including Oxfam and ActionAid have warned that projects have already been called off as a result of the cut.