Opinion: UK chancellor must act in the budget to prevent more aid cuts

With the United Kingdom’s national financial budget just a day away, the U.K. chancellor, the country’s chief financial minister, has a chance to mitigate some of the mistakes made by the last Conservative government and ensure that the U.K. aid budget isn’t further decimated. During the 2019 Conservative Party leadership contest, alarm bells rang when Boris Johnson boasted to party members that he would make sure the foreign aid budget would be used “more in line with Britain’s political, commercial and diplomatic interests” — a move that would have torn up the global rules of aid and development and with it, our promise to those facing extreme poverty, inequality, and the consequences of climate change. Five years later, things haven’t gotten to be as bad as that with the U.K. aid budget, thankfully, but the situation is still concerning. A staggering 28% of U.K. aid is spent right here in the country, some of which is used to fund hotel contracts to house vulnerable asylum-seekers and refugees. While it is right that we support refugees and asylum-seekers, taking this spending from the U.K. aid budget, diverts aid from its core mission — supporting vulnerable people and helping to make the world a healthier, more prosperous place. Even though this use of U.K. aid is permitted under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s global rules that govern aid and development funding, it removes the incentive to fix the root causes of our asylum system’s failures, including the staggering delays in processing applications. As it is, the U.K. now spends more of its aid budget on refugee costs per head than any other Group of Seven nation, putting immense pressure on an already shrinking budget. We absolutely need to support refugees and asylum-seekers in this country — these people have typically been through harrowing ordeals and need our support. But this funding needs to come from a separate budget and not at the expense of other marginalized groups. Previous Labour governments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown recognized this moral dilemma and refused to use the U.K. aid budget for domestic purposes. To his credit, Andrew Mitchell, the former international development minister during the Rishi Sunak administration, acknowledged this issue at the end of 2022 and secured a £2.5 billion top-up to the U.K. aid budget for the next two years. But that money has now run out and we are at a critical juncture as the world grapples with escalating conflicts, food insecurity, threats to democracy, and the urgent need to mobilize climate finance for lower-income countries. In the immediate term, we need the chancellor to top up the U.K. aid budget to cover these additional refugee costs, without slashing international programs. For the long term, we need a dedicated budget to support asylum-seekers and refugees, so U.K. aid can serve its purpose to continue supporting vulnerable communities worldwide without compromise. As a Labour member of Parliament, I am proud of our manifesto pledge to “turn the page to rebuild Britain’s reputation on international development.” With bold action in the budget, we can start to undo the damage of 14 years of Tory rule and rebuild a system that helps those most in need globally while benefiting the U.K. and its taxpayers.