UK’s crackdown on refugee rights could release over £2.6B in ODA

Up to £2.68 billion ($3.37 billion) could be diverted back to U.K. aid programs overseas because its crackdown on refugee rights will prevent the funds being spent on domestic asylum costs, a watchdog says. A new law banning asylum claims by anyone arriving without permission will mean their accommodation bills cannot be counted as official development assistance, or ODA, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact has confirmed, as Devex previously revealed. ICAI has gone further by estimating how much less in-country spending the United Kingdom could allocate as ODA in the future, after the raiding of the budget, in its words, “wreaked havoc” on Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office programs. That total is put at £2.68 billion of 2022 spending if the crackdown is enforced in full — around one-fifth of the budget — falling to £2.51 billion if new safe refugee routes are opened up, or £1.04 billion if some measures are dropped. ICAI stressed its calculations are “hypothetical scenarios” only, given the uncertainty over how many asylum seekers will arrive in the future as well as over how rigorously the Illegal Migration Act will be enforced. Nevertheless, the watchdog’s chief commissioner, Tamsyn Barton, said: “Our analysis of the aid rules suggests that the Illegal Migration Act, if fully implemented, could close off the main source of funding the government is using to house asylum seekers. “Whereas currently, the FCDO has to cut other aid programmes in order to meet these costs, they would have to be met by the Home Office out of its own budget.” The report follows mounting criticism of the U.K. for exploiting the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development rules that allow the allocation of refugees’ hotel and other bills as ODA for the first 12 months after arrival, even as other donor countries chose not to. In 2022, £2.9 billion of the £12.8 billion aid budget was diverted to pay the bills for an asylum backlog that has reached 130,000 claims, the majority of an overall £3.7 billion spent in the U.K. In July, Devex revealed the OECD’s provisional opinion that the Illegal Migration Act — by outlawing claims — meant any new arrival “no longer fits within the definition of a refugee,” so the aid budget could not be spent on them. The legislation allows asylum seekers to be detained and then deported instead, although a plan to send many refugees to Rwanda remains blocked in the courts. In its report, ICAI says the bar on using ODA will only kick in when the Illegal Migration Act is implemented — something the U.K. government has yet to do due to a lack of detention facilities and the Rwanda delay. It said its analysis, with possible permitted ODA spending on in-country refugees varying by £1.67 billion, laid bare “that aid spent on in-donor refugee costs continues to create enormous uncertainty, with FCDO unable to predict its budget.” Sarah Champion, chair of Parliament’s International Development Committee, said: “We warned the government to get its hands off ODA that’s clearly intended to support the poorest in the world in their home countries. “Spending in this manner was against the spirit of the ODA rules and now it seems, with the Illegal Migration Act, the government has made its policy in breach of those same rules.” The U.K. government has declined to say whether it accepts the looming restriction on the use of ODA — even though, behind the scenes, three departments are battling over which will pick up the bill, Devex was told. In July, a government spokesperson said: “We report all ODA spending in line with the OECD’s rules — which allow funding to be spent on food, shelter and education for asylum seekers and refugees for their first year in the U.K.” The act, passed in July, has been condemned by the United Nations’ refugee agency for breaching “international human rights and refugee law” and for creating “sweeping new detention powers, with limited judicial oversight.”