KEIR Starmer has given a ministerial position to a close ally in the unelected House of Lords.
It comes after Anneliese Dodds resigned from his Labour Government over cuts to the international aid budget.
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister said the UK would cut its spending on aid by 40% – from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3% – in order to fund an increase in the defence budget from 2.3% of GDP to 2.5%.
On Friday, Dodds said that she would resign as international development minister as the cuts would reduce UK influence just as Russia and China were looking to boost their presence abroad.
The outgoing Labour minister warned that the impacts of the cuts would be “far greater than presented” by the UK Government.
Starmer said in response that “protecting our national security must always be the first duty of any government and I will always act in the best interests of the British people”.
Later on Friday, he appointed his former political secretary Jenny Chapman to fill Dodds’s old position. She will also attend the UK Cabinet.
She was working as a parliamentary under secretary of state in the Foreign Office before she was elevated on Friday.
Chapman had been an MP from 2007 to 2019, when she lost her seat to the Conservatives.
Elsewhere, Starmer moved North America minister Stephen Doughty to also cover official development assistance in the House of Commons – given Chapman cannot enter it.
And Middle East minister Hamish Falconer will now be paid as a parliamentary under secretary of state in the Foreign Office.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves defended the decision to cut aid spending in order to boost defence.
“Anneliese is a friend and has been a good colleague and it is disappointing to lose a colleague,” she said.
But Reeves added: “The decision to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence is the right decision. The world has changed, we can see that all around us in Europe and beyond.
“We have to uplift what we spend on defence and we have funded that by reducing the international aid budget.
“That is the right decision in the circumstances we face today as a nation and that is why Keir Starmer made that announcement on Tuesday this week.”
