David Cameron has performed a U-turn on cuts to Britain’s foreign aid spending, saying he was now a “realist” on moves to slash the budget.
The former Tory prime minister had previously condemned then-chancellor Rishi Sunak for breaking the party’s promise to spend 0.7 per cent of the UK’s income on overseas aid.
Mr Cameron said in 2020 that reneging on the promise to the pledge to the world’s poorest was “very sad moment” and “a promise that we do not have to break”.
But in a change of stance, the former Tory leader said he accepted the need to need to make significant aid budget cuts to balance the books.
“I said at the time that it was a mistake. But I am a realist. Money is tight,” he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. “Yet the need for investment in developing countries is greater than ever.”
Mr Cameron called on western banks to lend more money to developing countries in a bid to counter the growing influence of China around the world.
The former PM said Beijing had become “the world’s largest official creditor" and was using loans to boost support in developing countries with its so-called ‘Belt and Road’ initiative to invest in infrastructure in other countries.
Mr Cameron said the should be “in the vanguard” of attempts to expand multilateral development bank (MDB) loans to they can lend $1trillion to developing countries.
“There is little point complaining about countries signing up for the Belt and Road if we can’t say to them ‘here’s the alternative’,” he wrote.
“It might not be as catchy as ‘make poverty history’ but ‘expand MDBs’ balance sheets’ is the next big imperative in the fight against poverty.”
Mr Sunak announced in November 2020 that aid budget would be cut by £4bn to 0.5 per cent of national income, breaking the Tory manifesto pledge of 0.7 per cent of GDP.
It was meant to be a temporary reduction – but chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his autumn statement ruled out a return to the higher spending target for several more years.
The Sunak government has also been condemned for overseeing a redirection of overseas aid to programmes within the UK – with more now spent on housing refugees at home than on the poorest in developing countries.
The government spent £3.5bn of aid money on supporting refugees and asylum seekers already in the UK last year – one third of Britain’s entire annual budget.
Government figures show that three times as much of the aid budget on housing refugees in Britain in 2022 than on helping alleviate poverty in Africa.
