OVERSEAS aid ought to be spent overseas, the Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge, has said, after recent data showed that multiple quarter of the UK’s aid budget was being spent domestically.
Figures released by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on the UK’s spending on aid in 2023 show that, out of a £15.3 billion total, £4.3 billion was spent on accommodating asylum-seekers.
On Tuesday, Dr Inge told the Church Times that using the overseas-aid budget to fund the prices of the asylum system meant that much-needed money was not being spent abroad.
Current rules allow overseas aid to be spent on “in-donor refugee costs” within the UK — which include accommodation and other living expenses for refugees who’ve arrived throughout the previous 12 months.
Dr Inge emphasised that he didn’t object to the Government’s spending money on asylum-seekers, but said that the allocation of the overseas-aid budget for this purpose amounted, in effect, to further cuts, after a cut to the budget of 0.5 per cent of gross national income (GNI) in 2020.
Dr Inge has previously spoken within the House of Lords in regards to the cuts, and asked why the Government had not delivered on its promise to revive the budget to 0.7 per cent of GNI “when fiscal circumstances allow” (News, 22 March).
He reiterated this on Tuesday, saying that probably the most recent budget included “giveaways”, but no return to the Conservative Party manifesto promise on aid expenditure.
“Through my very own experience, and experience with Christian Aid and other organisations, I’ve seen the devastating effects of the cuts,” he said. “The people who find themselves suffering most from reneging on a commitment to overseas aid are the poorest of the poor.”
FCDO figures show that the spending on bilateral-aid commitments was lower than on asylum-seekers within the UK, at £4.1 billion, and that spending on direct humanitarian assistance had dropped almost 20 per cent from the previous 12 months: from £1.1 billion to £888 million.
Spending on asylum-seekers should come from the Home Office budget, Dr Inge said. “The overseas aid budget ought to be restricted to — wait for it — overseas aid!”
He referred to arguments that overseas-aid spending was within the national interest for a lot of reasons, including the UK’s international status as a “truly civilised nation”, and the advantages of international stability.
“I think in overseas aid from a Christian perspective: I think in a God who has a bias towards the poor,” he said. “It’s our responsibility to assist those that are in need, and these persons are our neighbours, because we live in a world village now.
“In loving our neighbour as ourselves we’re helping ourselves, and that principle holds true in overseas aid, because in helping other people we’re enabling development which will probably be to everyone’s profit.”
Last week, the Shadow Minister for International Development, Lisa Nandy MP, said that using the overseas-aid budget on the asylum system was “sticking-plaster politics at its worst”, and “terrible value for money for British taxpayers”.
A government spokesperson was reported by BBC News as saying that the UK was “nearly doubling our spend in low-income countries this financial 12 months”, and that “last 12 months’s budget was boosted by additional funding to support refugees within the UK, who’ve escaped oppression and conflict overseas, including from Ukraine and Afghanistan. We will proceed to make sure our aid budget delivers value for money for British taxpayers.”
