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When Rishi Sunak cut the aid budget during the Covid pandemic from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP, it was described by Larry Elliott in the Guardian as an act of “wilful political vandalism” (29 November 2020). This was partly because the amount saved, £3bn-£4bn, was “chickenfeed” in the context of a budget deficit running at 20% of GDP, but mostly because it completely undermined “the idea of aid as global public investment for the common good”.
Keir Starmer’s aid cut is even more cynical, as your editorial (25 February) correctly identifies, because it is self-imposed without any economic logic to gain political traction in the Trumpian unilateralist world order. The moral bankruptcy of this approach was particularly evident in Elon Musk gleefully posting on X that “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper”. Starmer’s “aid for arms” announcement may find favour in the White House, but it will destroy the Labour government’s reputation and undermine multilateral approaches to poverty eradication when they are needed most.
Stephen McCloskey
Director, Centre for Global Education, Belfast
Cutting the UK aid budget to 0.3% rolls back any progress made on development and humanitarian assistance, which makes it hard to understand why David Lammy, who says he is proud of our record on international development, would try and justify this (This is a hard choice. We believe in foreign aid – but we have to make cuts. We must keep the UK safe, 25 February).
Instead of stepping up, the UK is turning its back on communities facing poverty and conflict. Make no mistake, cutting UK aid doesn’t make the UK safer. Investing in peace-building and tackling the causes of instability and poverty, alongside diplomacy and defence, does – and that is what UK aid did.
This is not progressive realism, this is a kneejerk move that undermines the UK’s global commitments and weakens our own security interests.
Romilly Greenhill
CEO, Bond, the network that represents British aid organisations
Talk of “hard choices” obscures the reality of lives lost to poverty before a shot is fired. Millions of children, women and men die each year because they are too poor to stay alive. A disaster year in, year out, and for which UK aid fulfils our duty to assist and treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves.
David Lammy says that to “stick within our fiscal rules, we have had to make the extremely difficult decision”. Difficult indeed for those who will die or have their growth stunted as a result. All to buy arms which, at best, will never be used and are eventually thrown away. As Eisenhower said: “This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
A better decision would be to raise taxes, print money or change the fiscal rules, but apparently that would be too “difficult”.
Michael McGuffie
Wellington, Somerset
It is misleading of David Lammy to claim that Harold Wilson took a far-sighted decision not to support US military involvement in the Vietnam war. Britain may not have openly sent troops, but it provided armaments and political support for over 10 years under successive prime ministers, from the earliest US involvement in 1961 until its ignominious withdrawal in the 1970s. This was concealed at the time, but is now well known, and it is disturbing that Lammy should continue to peddle the myth of non-involvement to defend aid cuts.
Peter Craig
Glasgow
It is only a week since Patrick Wintour mentioned the idea of the EU issuing defence bonds (19 February). A week is a long time in politics. Perhaps now is the time for the government to issue overseas aid bonds? I would happily invest and suspect others would too. If it means the government has to change its fiscal rules, I really don’t mind.
Dr Brian Ramsden
Milton Keynes
