Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting a debate on this topic, which takes place at such a crucial time for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I also take this opportunity to thank FCDO staff for their ongoing efforts to support British nationals caught up in the conflict in the middle east.

Over successive Governments, we have seen a sustained reduction in the United Kingdom’s development budget, ODA—official development assistance. First we saw the cut from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI, and there is now a stated path towards 0.3% by 2027. It has also been reported that the UK’s international climate finance commitment is now to be slashed by £2.6 billion. Those cuts have consequences: they affect how the UK is perceived internationally, as well as our ability to support stability and prosperity, both overseas and in our own country.

Aid has always been a highly cost-effective way of preventing conflict and reducing pressures that eventually reach our own borders. It allows girls to be educated, women to work, farmers to feed their communities, and disease to be challenged and contained. It also allows civil society to hold Governments to account. It is our soft superpower, and its benefits must not be underestimated.

The FCDO, as the past weekend proved, is constantly dealing with fast-shifting geopolitical sands. In this current financial year, as part of the FCDO’s supplementary estimate, we see further cuts to both day-to-day and investment spending, both of which have reduced quite dramatically—day-to-day spending by £457 million, and investment spending by £228 million. Most of these cuts are focused on the ODA budget, although Parliament has not yet been provided with details showing exactly where these reductions will fall.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady—a champion by name and a champion by conviction. We are very pleased to see her in her place, and we thank her very much for what she does.

I sometimes think there are opportunities for partnerships. For instance, churches in my constituency have very active partnerships in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Swaziland, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria, so there is perhaps a way of partnering with church groups, non-governmental organisations and individuals that have an interest in helping. Does the hon. Lady feel that the Minister and the Government should take that on board and look at it?

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the hon. Member for his kind words and for expressing that sentiment. Of course, faith communities do so much internationally, because it is the right thing to do, but they should be complementing what Governments are doing. At the moment, we know the scale of the cuts, but we do not know the distribution—it is not fair to be looking for philanthropic kindness to fill those gaps.

We know that reductions are taking place, but we do not know which programmes will be impacted. That is not just us in this House but the people on the frontline trying their very best to deliver these programmes to the very poorest.