Your reporting (28 February) of the overseas aid cuts highlights a worrying myopia among aid NGOs about Britain’s evolving challenges. This generational moment demands more than the simplistic equation of aid spending with security. The 138 NGOs calling these cuts the single largest in history overlook profound shifts: Donald Trump’s return, Russia’s aggression and rising global instability. Britain’s security and diplomatic influence depend on robust military capabilities, especially when our alliance with the US becomes less certain.
The issue is not percentage targets (0.5% to 0.3%), it is how effective aid is. Now that significant aid funds are redirected to asylum and refugee support at home, we must reassess whether our approach meaningfully affects global development. Critics of these cuts ignore political reality. The “forgotten” people most vulnerable to populism want the government to focus on the NHS, education, the cost of living and border security. To present aid as sacrosanct while domestic services struggle widens the disconnect. David Lammy’s proposal to use frozen Russian assets for Ukraine shows creative thinking. This is far more relevant than clinging to outdated spending targets.
This is not about destroying Labour’s legacy, it is about responding to a dramatically changed world. We have to balance humanitarian concerns with Britain’s interests in an increasingly unstable landscape. In 2025, security really does require a joined-up strategy. Defence, targeted aid and domestic priorities must work together. Clinging to old orthodoxies will not serve us.
Anthony Lawton
Market Harborough, Leicestershire
• The government’s plan to cut the aid budget has been roundly condemned by NGOs and the former head of the British army (Starmer’s cut to aid budget a ‘strategic mistake’, says former army head, 27 February). Assuming it nonetheless goes ahead, what remains is to ensure that the downsized aid budget is spent well – on places, people and problems that are genuine priorities for development. The aid budget should be brought back under the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which is best placed to manage it, rather than scattered across government departments.
The cost of supporting refugees in the UK (which took 28% of the aid budget in 2023) needs to be funded from domestic budget lines, not aid. And the process of cutting back the aid programme needs to be managed exceptionally carefully. With growing global needs and a shrunken budget, choices will be brutally hard.
If the UK is to retain a credible role in development, avoid the reputation-shredding effects of the Boris Johnson government’s cuts in 2022, and have a chance of building back in the future, the FCDO will need to invest in leadership and effort to minimise the damage from these cuts.
Tim Conway
Principal consultant, poverty and social protection practice, Oxford Policy Management
• To help make up the shortfall in foreign aid, Labour members might like to consider withholding their subscriptions and using the money to donate to one or more of the charities left in the lurch by the government. This would not only provide a little bit of help for those who need it most, but would also send a message to Keir Starmer’s government to start acting more like Labour and less like the Tories or Reform UK.
Chris Jones
York
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