Foreign Office minister quits in protest of slashed aid budget

Foreign Office minister Baroness Sugg has handed in her resignation over the deicison to slash overseas aid, branding it ‘fundamentally wrong’.

Today Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed foreign aid will be slashed from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP next year as part of a spending review to help pay for the coronavirus pandemic.

But Baroness Sugg, minister for Overseas Territories and Sustainable Development, is a long time supporter of sticking to the target, which the Conservative Party promised to keep in their 2019 election manifesto.

Boris Johnson has not yet accepted the resignation of the Baroness, who previously served as Number 10’s head of operations under David Cameron’s leadership.

In her letter to the Prime Minister, she says: ‘Many in our country face severe challenges as a result of the pandemic and I know the Government must make very difficult choices in response.

‘But I believe it is fundamentally wrong to abandon our commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on development. This promise should be kept in the tough times as well as the good.

‘For me, as for many in our party and the country, it is a source of great pride that the United Kingdom has been a development superpower and has contributed so much to the world.

‘Our support and leadership on development has saved and changed millions of lives. It has also been firmly in our national interest as we tackle global issues, such as the pandemic, climate change and conflict.’

Five former Prime Ministers, including the Baroness’s old boss, have spoken out against the Treasury’s plans, describing cutting foreign aid as both morally and politically wrong.

In a joint statement last week Cameron and Tony Blair said slashing the budget would be a ‘moral, strategic and political mistake’ which would let down the world’s poorest and diminish the UK’s standing in upcoming G7 climate change talks.

Sir John Major and Gordon Brown have both said the move will damage Britain’s international reputation and Theresa May is also understood to have told colleagues she was opposed to the plan.

Former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said the UK will be ‘poorer in the eyes of the world’ due to the Government’s move.

He told the Commons: ‘I recognise that the Chancellor will have made the decision on 0.7% with an extremely heavy heart but does he recognise that the respect felt for this country around the world is because we have championed causes throughout our history that matter to people everywhere like democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

‘One of those causes is tackling extreme poverty, so to cut our aid budget by a third in a year when millions more will fall into extreme poverty will make not just them poorer but us poorer in the eyes of the world, because people will worry that we are abandoning a noble ideal that we in this country have done more to champion than anyone else.’

The Chancellor responded: ‘There are many ways in which we exert our influence and our values across the world, aid is just but one part.’

Defence Committee chairman Tobias Ellwood warned China and Russia are likely to extend their ‘authoritarian influence’ as a result of the ‘vacuum’ created by the UK ‘downgrading’ its soft power programmes.

Tory MP for Mid Derbyshire Pauline Latham also suggested the cut will hit education for girls and result in ‘more child marriages, more instances of early child birth, more FGM, more domestic violence’.

Conservative former minister Andrew Mitchell said: ‘As a result of the pandemic here in the UK, 50,000 people have died and we are rightfully moving heaven and earth to prevent more deaths here at home.

‘But is (Rishi Sunak) aware his proposed breaking of the 0.7% promise and the 30% further reduction in cash will be the cause of 100,000 preventable deaths, mainly among children?

‘This is a choice I for one am not prepared to make and none of us in this House will be able to look our children in the eye and claim we did not know what we were voting for.’

Sunak replied: ‘Obviously, (Mr Mitchell) will have heard the reasons that I set out for doing what we’re doing. I believe we can still make a difference to the world’s poorest countries with the measures that we’ve put in place.

‘I think the most pressing issue that the developing world faces at the moment is the ability to deliver and deploy a coronavirus vaccine.

‘He will know that we are the largest donor globally to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment, the global initiative which is supporting development countries’ access to vaccines.

‘I think right now that’s probably the most important thing we could be doing, we are doing it, we are leading the world in helping them tackle coronavirus. But I know he and I will carry on this conversation.’

The Archbishop of Canterbury has branded the foreign aid cut as ‘shameful and wrong’ and said it was ‘made worse by no set date for restoration’.

Justin Welby added: ‘I join others in urging MPs to reject it for the good of the poorest, and the UK’s own reputation and interest.’

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However Tory MP for Shipley Philip Davies said in the ‘real world’ people support the cut in foreign aid.

He told MPs: ‘Can I support the Chancellor’s decision to cut the overseas aid budget, which I think will be widely welcomed across the country in the real world, even if not always in here.

‘I don’t see why it should be controversial to say that we only spend what we can afford on overseas aid.

‘I suspect that the vast majority of the British public won’t be asking why has he cut so much, they will probably be asking why are we still spending so much?’

Fellow Conservative Sir Robert Syms said his constituents in Poole would ‘understand’ the cuts.

He added: ‘Over the last 10 years we have spent over £100billion on overseas aid, a lot of it borrowed.

‘Most of my constituents will understand the difficult decision the Government has had to make.’

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