The U.K. government has been criticized for wrongly claiming it is forced by international rules to divert billions of pounds from its aid budget to pay the hotel bills of a vast backlog of asylum seekers.
Aid organizations reacted with astonishment after the Home Office’s top civil servant told an inquiry last week: “It is not a choice of the British Government to score that money as official development assistance; it is just part of the rules.”
In fact, the Paris-based Development Assistance Committee — which oversees official development assistance spending — has urged members to recognize that they “have the option to decide that such costs are additional to their planned development budgets,” as many countries have chosen to do.
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About the author
Rob Merrick
Rob Merrick is the U.K. Correspondent for Devex, covering FCDO and British aid. He reported on all the key events in British politics of the past 25 years from Westminster, including the financial crash, the Brexit fallout, the "Partygate" scandal, and the departures of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Rob has worked for The Independent and the Press Association and is a regular commentator on TV and radio. He can be reached at rob.merrick@devex.com.
