Home Office: ODA-funded Support

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they will place a cap on the amount of ODA-funded support provided by the Home Office for refugees who have reached the United Kingdom.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I draw attention to my entry in the register of Members’ interests.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

ODA-eligible costs of supporting refugees and asylum seekers in the UK have increased significantly, including to reflect support offered to Ukrainian and Afghan citizens. The Government have provided £2.5 billion of additional ODA to mitigate impacts on wider aid budgets and will continue to strike an appropriate balance between fiscal responsibility and our development objectives.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, had the Government not broken the pledge to deliver 0.7%, the overseas aid budget would now be £17.5 billion, which is £4.75 billion more than is currently proposed. Worse, domestic support for refugees going on hotels, barges and Rwanda is taken from that reduced ODA budget. Will the Minister acknowledge that giving the Home Office a blank cheque to raid the aid budget gives no incentive for restraint, value for money or processing the backlog of asylum claims and allows it to waste even more money on unsuitable accommodation? Can the Minister be proud of that? Should what is left of the budget not be protected instead of being used to balance the books on the backs of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I do not accept the points that the noble Lord has made. It is right that we provided the responses that we did to crises such as that in Ukraine but it is also important that we deliver value for money in our spending in this area. We continue to look to drive down the costs of asylum accommodation in particular. The Home Office has doubled the number of caseworkers in the last two years and continues to recruit more. It is streamlining and modernising its end-to-end process, with improved guidance and use of digital technology. We are also looking very carefully at where we accommodate people and how we can drive better value for money there too.