As a former Parliamentary Private Secretary in the (then) Department for International Development and former Chair of the British Council APPG, I’ve seen first-hand the tangible differences made by the UK’s aid programme. But alongside the literally life-saving effects of our 0.7% commitment, our aid budget also carries huge symbolic importance.
UK Aid funds the vaccination of 55 million people, saves an incredible 10 million children from hunger, and helps to provide 50 million people with the means to climb out of poverty. Overseas aid also brings many soft-power benefits: the influence for Britain culturally, diplomatically, and politically; its symbolic significance; and its demonstration of leadership.
I have always defended our aid budget, and I do not think that we should search for economies at the expense of the most vulnerable globally and at the expense of our own reputation and influence globally.
Just by way of background, many leading economies agreed in 1974 to provide 0.7% of their Gross National Income for overseas aid. No UK government until 2013 achieved this level of spending, with the last Labour Government averaging just 0.36%. Very few countries worldwide have ever managed to reach their stated goal.
The UK has spent 0.7% every year since 2013, and The UK’s contribution to the world’s poorest remains higher than any other country in the G7. This I will continue to wholeheartedly support.
In the teeth of the pandemic last year, the Government temporarily reduced our aid budget to 0.5%, without parliamentary scrutiny or a vote. They were entitled to do this under the legislation that introduced the figure, but many of us were displeased, and have sought to establish a precise timeframe for the restoration to 0.7%.
Of course, the Chancellor is responsible to the British public for the state of our economy, and I understand his reluctance to commit to spending given the level of economic uncertainty. We face an enormously serious economic situation and closing the COVID deficit will be a generational challenge.
However, the Government has made it clear that it intends to raise it once more, as soon as the public finances allow, but I was unable to support that assertion, given that it effectively left the decision down to the executive, with no recourse to Parliament and therefore no certainty it would be reinstated. No matter how strong the intention might be to raise it again, events are always likely to overtake and overcome good intentions. This is why I challenged the Government hard on this issue.
Politics is the art of the possible, and I wanted to ensure that we laid out a route back to our 0.7% commitment as soon as possible. I went to meet the Chancellor, one-to-one, where I proposed to him the settlement that was eventually reached – a set of conditions which, when met, would automatically reinstate the 0.7% commitment.
I proposed to the Chancellor a formula that would provide a pathway back to 0.7, governed by objective circumstances. Following many conversations with the Treasury and the Chancellor, they proposed that when debt is falling and the country is not borrowing for day-to-day spending (both of which will be independently assessed by the OBR, our foreign aid budget will automatically return to 0.7% and remain there forever.
Ceding control of the mechanism to the OBR and basing it on conditions that were met as recently as 2018-19 — and forecasted by the OBR in 2018-19 and in 2020 to be met in each of the following financial years — provides a clear pathway fulfilling our duty to the developing world.
This provides those of us who are proud supporters of the UK’s aid spending with the certainty we need that the reduction in aid budget is temporary and that our commitment to 0.7% will be upheld.
So this was not a vote to cut foreign aid – the cut has already taken place without a specific Parliamentary vote. This was, in fact, a vote to provide a clear, achievable and objective pathway back to 0.7% spending levels.
It is the first time in our history that any Chancellor has outsourced a spending commitment of this level (some £5 billion) to an external body – the OBR - and it is a mechanism that I’m proud to have played a part in securing. I believe that this is the best way to ensure that parliamentary legislation was put in place to ensure the Government cannot renege on its commitment, it cannot reduce aid again in the future, and we can swiftly return to providing the most support we can for the world’s poor. I am, and will remain, committed to Britain’s overseas development work.