The government has failed to commit to maintaining the current level of aid spending, which has already been cut by 40 per cent, the chair of parliament's International Development Committee has said. Last year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that UK aid spending would be reduced from 0.5 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.3 per cent, a cut of 40 per cent. The foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, laid out where those cuts would land in March, with total spending expected to fall from £10 billion in 2026-27 to £8.9bn the following year, before increasing slightly to £9.4bn in 2028-29.
The Labour chair of the International Development Committee, Sarah Champion, wrote to Ms Cooper seeking reassurance that the government would not reduce spending further by 2028-29. In a reply, development minister Baroness Jenny Chapman stated that the government's commitment to international development is as important as ever and that it has set three years of allocations to manage the transition to 0.3 per cent of GNI. However, she added that all future plans are subject to revision as the department’s work is dynamic, and programme allocations are continually reviewed to respond to changing global needs.
Releasing her letter and the response, Ms Champion said: “Having written to the foreign secretary seeking reassurance on aid spending, this response does not fill me or my committee with confidence. The minister rightly states that international aid both supports those in extreme poverty and boosts our security at home. However, I’m disappointed that she could not go further and explicitly say that the government is committing to spending at 0.3 per cent of GNI for the duration of the spending review period.”
The aid cuts will see bilateral support for African countries fall from £1.3bn a year to £677m over the next three years – a drop of 56 per cent – while countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Myanmar will also face severe reductions. Climate funding will fall from £11.6bn across the five years to 2026 to £6bn over the next three years, a drop of almost 15 per cent. Funding for key multilateral funds supporting global health, including the Pandemic Fund and Global Polio Eradication Initiative, will also be cut.
Last month, the foreign secretary laid out Britain's new approach to international development at the Global Partnerships Conference in London. Ms Cooper warned that the world was “more volatile, more contested, more unstable than ever,” and said that “bold new approaches” are needed. The UK’s new strategy prioritises aid for fragile and conflict-affected countries while building new investment partnerships with more stable developing countries. However, Ms Champion said the lack of reassurance about the UK's aid spending in Baroness Chapman's letter does not back up that message, adding: “This ambiguity sits awkwardly with what I was hearing at last week’s Global Partnerships Conference.”
