Spring Statement: ‘The Chancellor must not make foreign aid cuts worse’

The UK is preparing to make unprecedented 40% cuts to its international aid spending, a move that will have terrible consequences abroad while also making our own country less safe and less influential in the world.

As we brace for the real-world effects of that decision, there is now a fresh danger on the horizon that would worsen the impact of those cuts and make it even harder for the government to mitigate the damage as it has promised – a threat that will be decided when the Chancellor gets to her feet in the Commons on Wednesday.

If the reports are accurate, Whitehall budgets will lose billions of pounds more than previously expected in the years ahead, a move that could mean reductions of as much as 7% for ‘unprotected’ departments such as the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

This, if it happens, would be the worst double whammy imaginable for the FCDO – inflicting a further devastating blow on its incredibly valuable staff at the very moment they are wrestling with the almost impossible task of deciding which aid projects to axe, and which can survive.

These employees are one of our country’s greatest assets, even after the needless damage from the botched abolition of the Department for International Department by the Conservatives, which led to an exodus of much of this expertise.

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Last year, the International Development Committee I chair was relieved to be told that the FCDO had lifted the Tory-imposed freeze on recruitment and that the search for 200 new staff with aid and development know-how was underway.

Yet how can this crucial rebuilding of capacity go ahead if an FCDO still reeling from the announcement of 40% aid cuts must, somehow, also find hundreds of millions of pounds of fresh savings?

And, if it doesn’t, where does that leave Labour’s general election manifesto promise to “turn the page” on what it rightly called a “degraded” FCDO which my party acknowledged is costing Britain vital influence overseas?

‘Our soft power is built on being a country trusted to do the right thing for the right reasons’

The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, should be praised for recognising the crisis in his own department when he ordered three reviews by acknowledged experts to point the way to reviving our battered reputation and relationships abroad – yet, even before any recommendations have been acted upon, that vital work is now at risk of being left on the shelf if there is no money left.

Furthermore, the futures of vital institutions of UK soft power will be at stake in the spending review the government is carrying out: it will determine whether the British Council survives in its current form, and whether the BBC World Service continues to shrink – having already opened the door to Russia when previous cuts forced it to pull out of Lebanon, for example.

“The soft power of our development spend, but also institutions such as the BBC World Service, the British Council and others, is hugely important and should not be underestimated.” These are the words of the Foreign Secretary last year – when he said he regretted how cuts have diminished the work of the British Council, cuts that may now return. 

As the Chancellor decides her future spending plans, I urge her to consider the Treasury’s own words alongside last year’s Budget which emphasised how “FCDO’s spending helps reconnect Britain, actively contributing to growth and jobs, safer streets, cleaner energy, health security, and stemming irregular migration”.

I appreciate that tough decisions need to be made in the short term to balance the books, but our soft power is built on being a country that can be trusted to do the right thing for the right reasons – I’m banking on our Chancellor to do just that.

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