Conservative plans to slash the aid budget by 90% would leave the UK unable to cover existing contributions to the UN and World Bank and “irreparably damage” Britain’s global credibility, several organisations and charities have told the Guardian. In a series of announcements at the Tory party conference in Birmingham, Kemi Badenoch said that as prime minister she would reduce the aid budget from £9bn a year to £1bn, to part-fund 50,000 new prison places in England and Wales. The culture budget would also be slashed by £1bn a year to fund the plans.
Overseas aid has been targeted by all political parties in recent years. Keir Starmer’s government reduced aid from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3% by 2027, and last year Nigel Farage announced that Reform UK would cap overseas aid at £1bn a year, or about 0.03% of GDP. But those with knowledge of the UK’s commitments to global institutions such as the World Bank and the UN, suggested Badenoch’s plan to follow Farage’s policy was impractical, and one source described the move as “posturing”.
One source said that about 70% of the budget proposed by the the Conservatives would be swallowed up by funding the work done by British diplomats around the world. Existing commitments to the UN, the World Bank’s International Development Association, the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria total more than £1.6bn a year. Cutting those immediately would be almost impossible, sources suggested, as most settlements are agreed in advance and cover several years.
Even if the total could be brought down to £1bn, there would be no funding left to respond to new natural disasters such as devastating glacial floods in Nepal or the outbreak of new pandemics. Gideon Rabinowitz, the director of policy at Bond, the umbrella group for development NGOs, said a £1bn limit would amount to the UK “shooting itself in the foot” and renouncing its position on the global stage. We can’t do that without paying our dues,” he said.
If we cannot play our role in responding to those disasters on the international scale, then we are likely to find that displacement of people will grow, creating challenges for neighbouring regions and the UK. It would diminish Britain – it is un-British, unpatriotic, and unwise.”
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