Three PMs give overseas aid shake-up a thumbs-down

Three of Britain’s former prime ministers have joined in the widespread attack on Boris Johnson’s new plans to create an expanded Foreign Office by abolishing the Department for International Development (DFiD) and bringing its aid functions under one roof. 

The Prime Minister, who announced that his new ministry will be called the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office yesterday, says the shake-up of diplomacy and aid spending is part of a broader review of the UK’s role in the world and strategic objectives. 

Britain’s ambassadors, he said, will now be responsible for the distribution of development aid, with the aim of ensuring UK aid policy is “rooted firmly in our national interests”. However, the PM said the merger would not affect the O.7% of GDP spend on the aid budget, which will remain ringfenced.

But former prime ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have all criticised the PM’s plans for abolishing DFiD. Blair called the decision “wrong and regressive”, while Cameron, Johnson’s former referendum rival, said it would mean “less expertise,  less voice for development at the top table and ultimately less respect for the UK overseas”.

The move is part of a wider coordinated review of foreign policy led by John Bew. The professor of history at King’s College London, who currently advises the prime minister on foreign affairs, previously ran the “Britain in the world” project for the influential think tank, Policy Exchange.

Opinion polling reveals a high degree of public scepticism about overseas aid, with 53% believing overseas aid should be cut according to British Overseas NGOs for Development (“BOND”), and 59% believing aid is wasted due to corruption.

It is a populist issue on which the prime minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, believes the Westminster establishment is out of step with national opinion. However, with an economy in dire straits and the news agenda dominated by coronavirus, it is doubtful that the government will be able to make much hay out of the issue with the public.

Explaining his decision, the PM said the move would follow in the footsteps of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of whom have combined overseas aid with their respective foreign ministries. He added that the reform was “long overdue” and would ensure “maximum value” for taxpayers, £15 billion of whose money is currently spent by DFiD on aid projects around the world.

The shift in spending priorities reflects the approach taken by China, which uses foreign aid spending as part of its projection of regional soft power.

Johnson said: “We give as much aid to Zambia as we do to Ukraine, though the latter is vital for European security. We give 10 times as much aid to Tanzania as we do to the six countries of the western Balkans, who are acutely vulnerable to Russian meddling.”

The Prime Minister called the current arrangements “outdated”, claiming that British aid has for too long been treated as “some giant cashpoint in the sky” in a comment that has attracted strong criticism. Global aid charities joined in the criticism. Oxfam’s chief executive, Danny Sriskandarajah, called the decision a “brazen challenge to the aid sector”, while Christian Aid’s director of public affairs and campaigns said it was “an act of political vandalism”.

Opposition leader Keir Starmer called the move “pure distraction” from the country’s urgent economic and health challenges, and called upon the prime minister to focus on these priorities.

Although the timing may feel strange to some, the merger has been a long time in the planning, and forms part of a much broader project for rethinking Britain’s role in the world – an impetus triggered by Brexit that has been leant fresh urgency by the effects of coronavirus and the wider reorientation away from China.