USAID Funding Pause

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) for securing this debate, which is a timely one, given that we are approaching 20 years since the Gleneagles summit held in Scotland in 2005. Twenty years ago, Nelson Mandela spoke in Trafalgar Square calling on us to make poverty history. World leaders gathered in Gleneagles in 2005, and they rose to the challenge, cancelling debt for some of the world’s poorest countries and boosting aid.

In 2025, aid and development are firmly in the spotlight, but for very different reasons and in a very different context. While this debate is focused on the impact of USAID funding cuts, there is no doubt that those cuts will have a seismic impact on the landscape globally, and on our own approach to development. The US is the world’s largest aid donor, providing around 20% of all aid from the 32 members of the OECD. In February, we announced the very difficult decision that UK aid would be cut to boost defence spending.

While I welcome the uplift in defence spending, for people such as me and the hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes who have worked in development for many years, it was a painful decision. However, it is important to emphasise the difference between the decisions made in the United States and those made in the UK. While I will not comment too much on the rationales for different Governments’ decisions, the UK Government have been clear that this was not an ideological decision but one driven by financial pressures. I believe, and I am sure that the Minister will assure us, that there is a commitment to continuing to develop aid.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

On the question of whether the Government’s decision was driven by financial motivations, does the hon. Member agree that whether it is 0.7% or 0.3%, the key is that UK GDP must rise, as her own Chancellor has said? If our economy shrinks, the 0.7% figure becomes almost irrelevant because it is 0.7% of a much smaller budget. All that matters overseas is the amount of cash they get, not the percentage of our domestic product, so we must drive the economy first before we try to deliver the mechanism that I am sure most of us are in favour of.

[Alice Macdonald]

The hon. Member is right; this is an internationally agreed percentage of gross national income, but too many countries have not met that target. As has been mentioned, some countries are stepping back, so it is important to be clear that we will keep our commitment to getting back to 0.7% as soon as the fiscal circumstances allow. However, in this new reality, we must ensure that our aid delivers maximum impact where it is spent, that we take actions to mitigate the effect of these cuts and that we keep the commitment to return to 0.7% in the long term.

In that spirit, I will focus on five key areas where the Government should act. First, they must cut in-donor refugee costs. As many Members know, we spend a significant portion of our current aid budget in the UK on those costs, which were approximately £4 billion in 2023. That trend started under the previous Conservative Government—who also left us with huge backlogs in the asylum system—and I know that this Government are determined to tackle it. We have seen some progress in bringing down those costs, and provisional estimates suggest that they were £2.8 billion in 2024, but we need to continue that trajectory with a clear timeline and a commitment across Departments to get them down.

Secondly, we must maximise the impact of our aid. It is important that we align with the “leave no one behind” principle in the 2015 sustainable development goals. I would not want to be in the shoes of the Minister for International Development in the other place, because there are difficult decisions to be made, as members of the International Development Committee recently heard. It is important that Members of Parliament, including Back Benchers, clearly see the criteria and the vision against which those decisions are being made.

The “leave no one behind” principle must, as I alluded to earlier, include a focus on women and girls. It is clear that the USAID cuts will have a big impact in that area. In 2023, the US was the largest single donor in areas including population, reproductive health and family planning. Under the Conservative Government’s last round of cuts to the aid budget, we saw that women and girls were disproportionately affected, so it is important that does not happen again. I recently asked the Minister for Europe in the main Chamber whether women and girls would remain “at the heart” of our policy, and he assured me that they would.

At the International Development Committee, the Minister for International Development in the other place assured us that although there would be less money for women and girls in education, it would be mainstreamed across all the priorities. Can the Minister elaborate on how we will ensure that they are prioritised and, importantly, how we will continue to support women’s rights organisations? As UN Women has shown recently, there has been a detrimental impact, with many such organisations at risk of having to close their doors altogether. When we invest in women and girls, we get better outcomes, not only for those countries but for ourselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse.

I thank the hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) for leading the debate. He and I have talked often about his previous job before he came here. I put on the record my thanks to him for what he did. His heart is in this debate, as was clear in his comments. This is a huge issue: since Trump signed the initial executive order in January, there has been a moral obligation on countries like ours to do our best to pick up what may be lost in terms of humanitarian safety, so it is great to be here to discuss that impact.

The United States is the world’s largest aid donor, providing 20% of all aid. In addition, in 2023 it was the largest single donor in areas including population, reproductive health and humanitarian aid. In March 2025, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stated that 82% of all USAID programmes would be ended. I will try to be respectful, but I have to say that if the richest country in the world cuts back on aid to that extent, it reflects badly on that country; I think there is something wrong there.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and I are Christians, and we tithe our money so 10% of our income goes to charities and Christian work. We are not better than anybody else— I make that quite clear—but we do that because we feel we are morally supposed to. The reflection on the USAID programme is absolutely unbelievable and incomprehensible for a country with so much money.

I was telling my hon. Friend about a conversation between two American ladies—I do not know who they were—that I overheard in my hotel in Waterloo this morning. I heard one say to the other, “Oh, by the way, I had to get my leg done and it cost $100,000.” I nearly spilt my coffee on the floor—$100,000 and there was not another word about it. The US as a country has an obligation to others across the world, and it needs to play its part. I say that with respect and in all honesty.

The decisions that began in January have ultimately raised concerns about the continuity of global health and developmental support work. As my party’s health spokesman, my interest is piqued by the potential for humanitarian and health aid to be ultimately affected as a result. I understand that the Government have made some exceptions with waivers, but hundreds of thousands of people will undoubtedly be impacted because of those decisions.

According to The Independent, 912,730 women per week are being denied contraception. HIV vaccine trials in South Africa have been halted. Food and shelter programmes in refugee camps have been reduced or stopped early. US withdrawal has led to an increase in influence from outside actors such as China—let us beware China using its money to fill the space and therefore get what it wants. Up to half a million children could be at risk of outbreaks of malaria and cholera, which can be prevented in normal circumstances with aid.

Not only are such decisions impacting people across the globe, but closer to home the staff are ultimately out of employment as well. There is a disregard for the number of jobs that it could impact. The Minister has compassion and interest in this issue, and I do not think any of us will be disappointed in her response to our requests. In any discussions that she and the Government have with the US on this matter, the UK must work with other countries to meet development goals and ensure that those struggling across the globe are not left with nothing.

The UK has a stellar reputation for supporting countries facing poverty. In Northern Ireland we have several charities, non-governmental organisations and churches— I work with them all the time in my constituency of Strangford and in Newtownards—that are pivotal in supporting people in poverty. Charities such as Challenge Ministries, Mission Africa, Self Help Africa and Children in Crossfire come out of the churches and what they do. Their continued efforts reflect our commitment to supporting the nations who need help, and we must ensure that to some extent we continue to do that in the long term.

[Mr Campbell]

On the NGOs and the other groups helping people at home, the House of Commons Library summary indicates that over a quarter of UK aid has been spend on refugees based in the UK. Does my hon. Friend agree that that would be better deployed overseas to try to assist the economies of developing countries, because of the concern about massive immigration into the UK? If those economies were helped and assisted, it would do more to reduce the numbers of people coming to the UK and offset the problems that we occasionally see on our streets.

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. His comments about what we should do are incredibly wise, because there would be benefits. Sometimes the full appreciation of that is not known.

I was at a Samaritan’s Purse charity event last Friday in my constituency, where I was quite critical of USAID. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, whose missionary work I am aware of, is also working with Samaritan’s Purse. Such people in my constituency and elsewhere fill the gap where the aid falls down. We owe a great debt to those NGOs, church groups, missionary organisations and the likes of Samaritan’s Purse for what they do and how they respond to emergencies, whether they are floods, earthquakes, war or whatever.

To conclude, both Governments have said in the past that more needs to be done to help low-income countries raise their own funds for development and to address climate change, especially in relation to poverty reduction. We should be proud as a nation of what we have done, while also encouraging our counterparts in the US to ensure that we do what we can to support as a collective.

I agree that every pound or dollar spent must not be wasted on political gesturing and must be spent well, but we must not stop spending altogether. That is my fear about USAID, because we have a moral obligation. I know that our US counterparts can work with us to find worthwhile projects, cut the political posturing and make a global difference, which is what we all need to do.