THE Prime Minister’s decision to chop the international aid budget to fund a rise in UK defence spending is “fanning the flames of worldwide insecurity”, Christian Aid has warned.
On Tuesday, Sir Keir told the House of Commons that cutting foreign aid spending from 0.5 to 0.3 per cent of GDP was “not an announcement I’m completely happy to make”, and insisted that the UK would proceed to support humanitarian efforts in Sudan, Ukraine, and in Gaza.
He plans to extend defence spending by 2.5 per cent of GDP from April 2027 — the equivalent of £13.4 billion. This represents the most important increase in defence spending because the Cold War. He also plans to spend three per cent of GDP on defence in the following parliament, “as economic and financial conditions allow”.
“It is my first duty as Prime Minister to maintain our country protected,” he said. “In an ever more dangerous world, increasing the resilience of our country so we will protect the British people, resist future shocks, and bolster British interests, is significant.”
In 2021, the Conservative Government reduced UK spending on overseas aid from 0.7 per cent of the country’s gross national income (GNI) to 0.5 per cent, pledging to revive it “when fiscal circumstances allow”. It has not since been restored.
In its election manifesto, in June 2024, Labour said that it was “committed to restoring development spending at the extent of 0.7 per cent of gross national income as soon as fiscal circumstances allow”.
Sir Keir said on Tuesday: “This difficult alternative reflects the evolving nature of the threat and the strategic shift required to satisfy it whilst maintaining economic stability. . . Meeting the fiscal rules is non-negotiable, and the Government will take the tough but essential decisions to make sure they’re met.”
Responding to the announcement, Christian Aid’s director of policy, public affairs and campaigns, Osai Ojigho, said: “The world’s most marginalised communities are facing a dramatic and deepening poverty crisis, made worse by conflict and the climate crisis.
“These cuts — a political decision echoing Trump’s race to the underside on aid — are nothing in need of a betrayal that can erode trust and fire up global insecurity.”
President Trump has repeatedly said that NATO governments weren’t spending enough on defence. Among his executive orders when he took office last month was to freeze just about all foreign aid programmes, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as a part of his “America First” agenda — a choice which has been widely condemned by global aid agencies. In 2023, Washington distributed $72 billion in foreign aid across nearly 180 countries.
Sir Keir is on account of meet President Trump on the White House on Thursday, where he is predicted to debate the importance of Ukraine’s independence, US security guarantees, and European involvement in peace talks. Speaking at a world summit in Kyiv on Monday, on supporting Ukraine for 3 years because the Russian invasion, Sir Keir suggested that President Trump had “created a possibility” to finish the war.
Mr Ojigho said: “We must reject the false alternative being spun between defence spending and fulfilling our responsibilities to people in crisis. Ministers can show global leadership by taxing wealthy polluters and compelling private creditors to cancel debts to countries in crisis, but will they?”
The chief executive of World Vision UK, Fola Komolafe, said that the charity was “well placed to know the devastation” that the UK cuts would cause for kids and families who were battling drought, floods, hunger, disease, and malnutrition.
“This move completely undermines the UK Government’s recent commitment to international development. . . Just when an illustration of worldwide leadership is most needed, it is a huge leap backwards.
“Difficult decisions on spending have to be made, but these mustn’t be at the fee of youngsters’s lives. It’s essentially the most vulnerable, those living in areas which can be fragile on account of effects of conflict or climate-change aspects, that can bear the brunt of those decisions.”
The charity, like other aid agencies, called for a “review and reversal of this short-sighted decision-making”.
The chief executive of Tearfund, Nigel Harris, agreed that the “appalling” decision would go away families hungry, children without an education, and girls’s rights “sidelined”. He said: “At a time of unprecedented humanitarian suffering, drastically cutting overseas aid is indefensible and short sighted. It undermines hard won gains and signals a retreat from tackling extreme poverty, conflict, and global health crises.”
The director and chief executive of the Roman Catholic agency CAFOD, Christine Allen, said that “more people will die, and lots of more will lose their livelihoods” consequently of the cut. “Coming so soon after the USAID freeze, that is one other lifeline being pulled away from those in desperate need, at a time when the world feels increasingly precarious.
“The UK has a alternative to make: to support those in need, or turn our backs on them. . . If we’re seeing the decline of aid to support the world’s most vulnerable communities, then the Government must show serious ambition to reform the worldwide economy — including the broken global debt system — to enable those most in have to emerge from poverty.”
