The former head of the Foreign Office has warned Rachel Reeves not to cut Britain’s international aid spending, amid signs the chancellor is willing to raid the development budget to help pay for higher defence spending.
Simon McDonald, the former lead civil servant at the Foreign Office, said it would damage Britain’s global reputation if Reeves chose to reduce aid as she looks for savings across Whitehall in this year’s spending review.
Government sources have told the Guardian the aid budget is one of a number of areas being eyed up for savings, with the chancellor demanding that ministers justify every item of government spending.
But with the US president, Donald Trump, having recently frozen the US aid programme, McDonald warned such a move would have serious implications for the world’s poorest people.
He told the Guardian: “At times of financial need, development assistance is an easy target for trimming because international assistance is not generally voters’ priority.
“I hope the Treasury is not sharpening its knife for further cuts: not only has the UK’s international reputation taken a knock from the 2020 cut, the international need for such help is greater than ever with the slashing of USAid.”
He added: “When times are tough the bits of the budget that connect least to voters are the most vulnerable. I think the Foreign Office will be able to show their great effect, but in the end if it’s not about taxpayers or voters, it must be vulnerable.”
A government spokesperson called the prospect of cuts to the aid budget “pure speculation”. They added: “Our development spending is central to achieving a world free from poverty on a liveable planet, with the UK remaining one of the top donors among the G7.”
Asked whether the chancellor was considering aid cuts, however, another official close to the spending review process said: “Everything is at risk in this spending review.”
Reeves faces one of her biggest challenges as chancellor as she draws up three years of spending plans to be announced in June.
Plans made at last year’s budget would see unprotected departments being cut by just over 1% a year from 2025/26 to 2027/28. Since then, however, the UK’s borrowing costs have risen, leaving the chancellor looking for further spending cuts to avoid having to borrow more than she originally promised.
Her job has been made even harder by the government’s promise to lift defence spending to 2.5% of GDP – a promise the prime minister has underlined in recent weeks in response to Trump’s talks with Russia over the future of Ukraine.
Alongside defence, the health and education budgets are also protected. Other departments are being asked to draw up plans for cuts of between 5% and 11% over the three-year period.
Officials say one of the most vulnerable departments is the Foreign Office, which has already had its budget cut by more than a third in real terms in the last five years.
To find cuts on the scale being demanded by the Treasury, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, is having to contemplate cuts to personnel – both domestic and foreign – and to the aid budget.
McDonald said that civil servant numbers in London could be trimmed, but warned against cutting back Britain’s diplomatic corps.
“The network is vital to the UK – it is our eyes, ears and brains on the ground all over the world,” he said. “You never know where might suddenly be important to UK interests.”
“It is relatively cheap to run: cutting 50 posts would save only about £5m. When I was permanent secretary, FTSE CEOs told me they were astonished that Foreign Office running costs were so low; they were paying three or four times as much for global networks that gave them a fraction of our coverage.”
But many officials are just as concerned about the aid budget, given the impact of Trump’s decision to freeze his government’s aid programme and slash the staff of the country’s aid agency.
The president’s decision has already led to the overnight closure of HIV services in South Africa, the dismissal of 5,000 healthcare professionals in Ethiopia and the likely waste of nearly $500m worth of food aid.
Britain currently spends around 0.5% of its gross national income on aid after it was cut from 0.7% in 2021 by former prime minister Boris Johnson. Labour has promised to restore it to 0.7% “as soon as fiscal circumstances allow”, but aid experts now worry it could be reduced once more instead.
Romilly Greenhill, the chief executive of Bond, which lobbies on behalf of development NGOs, said: “Any suggestions to follow in the US’s footsteps and cut development and humanitarian spending to fund defence spending would be reckless, short-sighted and would in fact undermine the UK’s own security interests.”
Article by:Source: Kiran Stacey Political correspondent
