ODA Budget Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Chris Stephens
Main Page: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)Department Debates - View all Chris Stephens's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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James Cleverly
The 2015 Act envisaged that there might be circumstances in which a Government would be unable to meet the 0.7% target. As I said, this is a truly unique and unprecedented set of economic circumstances. We will look to get back up to 0.7% as soon as the situation allows. We will look at the situation with regard to legislation.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Will the Minister confirm—he has yet to do so—whether any impact assessment was made of the cuts, in particular to Yemen of 60%, Syria two thirds, Libya 63% and South Sudan 40%? Does he not recognise that the feeling of the House is such that those serious measures, those damaging cuts, should go to a vote of the whole House?
James Cleverly
Of course the whole process that we are going through is to balance the decisions that have been forced on us by economic circumstances and the impact that they would have. The whole job of the Department is to make those incredibly difficult decisions. That is the job that we do each and every year. Those decisions have perhaps come into sharper focus this year because the economic situation has forced the reduction in our ODA expenditure, but this is what the Department does: it balances the expenditure that we have at our disposal and assesses the best way in which we can maximise the positive impact of that money.