Keir Starmer rejected top-level advice that he could restore a separate United Kingdom aid department with “negligible” cost and disruption, according to a new book by former senior development officials.
One of a series of “confidential papers from recognised experts” concluded the Labour government could easily replicate the 1997 creation of the Department for International Development “from day one,” it said — through sharing buildings, information technology, and corporate support services with the Foreign Office.
However, Starmer opted to retain the much-criticized 2020 full merger of diplomacy and development work he inherited from the defeated Conservative government despite, the book claims, having “seemed to rule out” that option in the summer of 2023.