Keir Starmer is facing a backbench revolt by Labour MPs this week as anger mounts over the government’s decision to cut the international development budget by almost half in order to pay for an increase in defence spending.
The Labour chair of the all-party select committee on international development, Sarah Champion, who has already called on the government to rethink the decision, has secured a debate in the Commons on Wednesday at which dozens of Labour backbenchers are considering intervening to express their dismay.
One of those who may speak out, according to colleagues, is Anneliese Dodds, who resigned as international development minister on Friday.
In her resignation letter Dodds, formerly a close ally of Starmer, suggested that discussion about altering the government’s fiscal rules to avoid having to cut international aid should have taken place before a decision was made.
There is also mounting concern spreading across ministerial ranks over how many of Labour’s core policies will have been thrown overboard to allow the government to keep within the chancellor Rachel Reeves’ self-imposed fiscal rule of not borrowing for day-to-day spending.
One government source said: “This is the real debate now. What will be left afterwards? With everything that is going on in the world, what will be left of the Labour programme?”
Other sources said that it was all very well increasing defence spending, as Donald Trump had demanded, and as was necessary, but there needed to be “sacred areas” of policy.
Unease over the aid decision is also likely to surface when Starmer makes a statement to the House of Commons early this week on his visit to the White House, and on his subsequent meetings with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders.
Labour MPs are also expected to speak out on the aid cut during a debate on Thursday on International Women’s Day. Over recent years the debate has become an occasion for MPs to focus on violence against women and girls. This year, charities such as Care International have arranged for celebrities to focus on women’s rights around the world in response to the US aid cuts and the Trump administration’s roll-back of reproductive rights.
Writing for the Observer online today the Labour MP for Milton Keynes Central, Emily Darlington, a former special adviser to the late Labour chancellor Alistair Darling, breaks ranks to criticise the aid cuts, saying that as a result the world will become less safe. “National defence and international development are two sides of the same coin,” she writes. “Our long-term security requires us to invest in both.”
Drawing on her experience of living in Kenya before becoming an MP at the last election, Darlington says: “Like many African countries, Kenya has huge potential but it also has a violent recent history and is plagued by the threat of international terrorism. So when the US or the UK withdraws funding for clinics offering sexual and reproductive health services, young women can’t take control of their lives. When the US or the UK withdraws funding for schemes to combat young men being fed disinformation, the risk is that they become more easily recruited by malign actors, armed groups and even terrorist networks.”
On Friday the Labour peer Lady Chapman was appointed to succeed Dodds as international development minister, a decision which also caused dismay among MPs of all parties and aid groups, who complained that as a member of the House of Lords she would not be able to answer questions in the House of Commons on aid issues.
The former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell, a Tory MP, said: “The decision to place a minister from the House of Lords in charge of international development is part and parcel of the Labour government’s failure to understand that international development contributes to safety, security and prosperity.”
It was also wrong, Mitchell suggested, that “no MPs will be able to question her routinely” in the Commons.
After Starmer made the decision to slash development aid Champion said: “Cutting the aid budget to fund defence spending is a false economy that will only make the world less safe. Conflict is often an outcome of desperation, climate and insecurity; our finances should be spent on preventing this, not the deadly consequences.
“In 2023, Ukraine received £250m in UK aid, more than any other country. We simply cannot afford to undermine this investment by putting more into a war chest.”
Although there will be no separate vote on the aid decision after Wednesday’s debate, MPs say the debate will show the extent of unrest on the Labour backbenches as well as disquiet among MPs of other parties.
Today the CEOs of many of the country’s leading aid NGOs have issued a statement to the Observer condemning the decision to cut the international aid budget. They say: “It’s deeply disappointing that, after watching Labour MPs protest against the previous government’s cuts to UK aid in 2021, the prime minister and Treasury have taken the same path.”
“Given Labour’s manifesto commitments and their promise to restore the UK’s reputation as a trusted global partner, we had hoped for a clear plan to gradually return to the 0.7% aid target.
”Instead, without any apparent impact assessment or consideration of the consequences, they have once again raided an already diminished UK aid budget, leaving those facing conflict, poverty, and climate change to bear the cost of the UK’s financial choices.
“This was not an inevitable decision. Labour had alternatives, such as a modest 2% wealth tax on assets over £10m – impacting just 0.04% of the population – which could generate £24bn annually. Rather than pursuing fairer funding solutions, they have chosen a path that leaves their credibility on international development in tatters and damages the UK’s standing on the global stage.”
Signatories include Halima Begum, CEO of Oxfam GB, Christine Allen Executive Director, of Cafod, the Catholic development agency, Adrian Lovett, executive director, of One, the nonpartisan organisation advocating investments in economic opportunities and healthier lives in Africa, Rose Caldwell, CEO of Plan International UK, Patrick Watt, CEO for Christian Aid and Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the UK network for NGOs working on international development.
On Wednesday Labour MPs and peers packed a meeting room in parliament to be briefed on the prime minister’s announcement. The defence secretary John Healey was joined by Africa minister Lord Collins to face dozens of angry questioners.
MPs said several Labour grandees including Harriet Harman, Peter Hain and Paul Boateng were in attendance.
A particular focus of MPs’ questions was on the amount of foreign aid still being used by the Home Office to pay for hotels housing asylum seekers. The Centre for Global Development estimates that after the cuts are implemented, around half of the aid budget will be spent in the UK as a result.
In an attempt to placate Labour MPs, ministers gave assurances that there would be no cuts to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) until 2027, but this was not repeated in the written briefing sent to MPs by email the same day. The prime minister’s rushed announcement, after a cabinet meeting where ministers were informed of the decision, said aid would be cut from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income when defence spending rises to 2.5% of gross domestic product in 2027. MPs are demanding that the FCDO now conduct a rapid impact assessment before the cuts are made. Charities are mobilising their supporters to flood the email inboxes of MPs and are using social media to connect Starmer’s decision with Trump’s unpopularity. Internet memes featuring Trump as a puppet master pulling Starmer’s strings are being circulated in an echo of American charities using images of Trump being manipulated by Elon Musk.
