Despite its previous reassurances, the British government is planning to cut its development aid budget

Although the UK authorities declared in September that there were no plans to cut development assistance spending, it has now transpired that the Treasury intends to slash this significantly due to the COVID-19 crisis.

While the British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, had insisted that the UK will maintain its development aid budget to adhere to the 0.7% GNI OECD target, the Treasury is planning to cut billions and reduce spending to the level of 0.5% GNI next year. It is worth noting that the Foreign Office has already decreased the foreign aid budget by more than £2.9 billion as a result of the decline in the British economy which has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, Great Britain spent £15 billion in development aid and, if the Treasury decides to reduce this amount to 0.5% of GNI, this will result in billions more being cut in 2021. Meanwhile, the needs of underdeveloped countries are rapidly growing, not falling, as their weak economies are particularly vulnerable to the turmoil triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak. UN representatives as well as other development aid organizations have recently repeatedly appealed to wealthy nations to increase their financial efforts in terms of development assistance.

See also: AidWatch2020: EU member states are off-track from meeting their genuine aid targets

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick, stressed in a radio interview on LBC that the UK is also going through difficult times due to the outbreak which is why it has to reconsider its financial commitments towards others:

“I think it is a legitimate question for us to ask at this moment in time whether or not it would be wise to spend somewhat less in light of the fact public finances are in a really challenging situation.”

The split within the ruling party certainly does not help to tackle the development aid budget issue sensibly. While the Treasury wants to reduce spending, as recently as mid-November during the mid-Atlantic regional summit, Dominic Raab confirmed that Great Britain was committed to the 0.7% target saying:

“The target is contentious and is debated hotly, but we make the case for our values and the alignment between values and interests. For example, through the vaccine we put a lot of money in … there is a moral interest to make sure that the most vulnerable countries do not get a second wave of this virus.”

This declaration was made in front of Chris Coons, a member of Joe Biden’s team, who will almost certainly be the next US Secretary of State and it is believed that the new US administration will boost development aid policy, as well as significantly increase the budget for overseas assistance.

If the British government does eventually decide to reduce the development aid budget, it first has to prepare the proper legislation to do so, i.e., to legally abolish the aid budget target. Bearing in mind the current balance of forces in the Parliament, the success of this plan is not guaranteed. However, less parliamentary approval is needed to cut the ODA/GNI ratio target from 0.7% to 0.5%, especially if it is presented as a temporary cut.

However, there may also be another option if this approach cannot be pursued. The Foreign Office could reclassify spending for security and defense and still designate this to be foreign aid spending, although there are limitations in terms of what may be categorized as development aid spending and what may not, according to internationally accepted guidelines.