Official Development Assistance Reductions

Monica Harding Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

It is indeed a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing this debate on a critical issue. It is critical because we are at a cliff edge. This year, with 120 armed conflicts, more than at any moment since the second world war; this year, with nearly 320 million people facing acute hunger; this year, when 2024 was the hottest year on record; this year, when the deadly trio of climate, conflict and hunger collide to force the displacement of 123 million people, this Government decided to slash the aid budget to the lowest level this century—after, because of or in spite of the United States Administration’s decision to close USAID, cut the foreign assistance budget by 85% and shed 10,000 jobs.

This year, under a Labour Government, we surrendered our global leadership on aid and development. That represents one of the most consequential and devastating decisions of recent years, with long-term consequences for our stability, security and prosperity, and it will cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

It is a mistake, both morally and strategically—strategically, because aid is not an act of charity, as we have already heard today. It is a long-term investment in our future; it is not a cash machine in the sky, but a deposit account from which we withdraw for our own prosperity. There is a reason why some of the most vociferous voices against these cuts are those of former military leaders. In contradiction of the Government’s attempt to reframe the cuts as a choice between defence and development, they argue instead that the two are mutually supportive. To undermine one, is to weaken the other; as former US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said:

“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.”

These are short-term decisions with long-term repercussions—easy now, but so hard further down the line, and costing Britain more in the long run.

Through our development spend, we invest in peace and resilience building. We know that when fragile states collapse, they create breeding grounds for extremism and terror, and that preventing wars is cheaper than fighting them. The ONE campaign has emphasised that every dollar invested in conflict prevention saves more than $100 in emergency response. However, funding for the UK Integrated Security Fund has been reduced by over £130 million this year, leaving vital peace building efforts without support.

Strategically, cutting aid is a mistake because aid keeps our borders safe. When we invest in the economic development of a nation, we give people opportunity and a stake in the success of that nation, so they will choose to stay there rather than feeling compelled to seek those things in Britain by migrating to these shores. As the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world unfolds in Sudan, in 2024 alone more than 2,000 Sudanese nationals crossed the channel on small boats.

Strategically, cutting aid is also a mistake because development spend protects our health and security, and the NHS, keeping disease from our shores. Strategically, it is a mistake because development spend creates the conditions for trade and partnership, strengthening economies that become markets for British goods and services and promote growth.

Strategically, cutting aid is also a mistake because development is an investment in our soft power—the global influence that comes from being a trusted partner. When Britain leads on aid and development, our voice carries further in diplomacy, trade and security; when we withdraw, our influence diminishes and our adversaries, who watched us jealously, knowing the value of that influence, move in. As we cut our soft power tools, such as the British Council and the BBC World Service, China and Russia cement their influence across the African continent.

Those are the strategic arguments against cutting aid, but the moral arguments alone are enough. Government projections show UK aid spending falling from £14 billion to around £9 billion by 2027, a near one-third reduction in real terms, and the actual numbers are far worse. In-country donor refugee costs, or asylum accommodation costs, are consuming a fifth of our entire aid budget. What right have the Government to spend taxpayers’ money—including that of my Esher and Walton constituents—money that had been allocated to help the poorest in the world, in our own country to balance the inefficiencies of the Home Office?

Will the Minister ensure that the FCDO follows the International Development Committee’s recommendations, as set out in its report on the FCDO’s approach to value for money, published last week, that formal steps should be taken to cap the ODA that the Home Office can use for in-country donor refugee costs, including capping those costs at a fixed percentage of total ODA, and make a formal commitment that unspent ODA funding by other Government Departments is channelled back into the FCDO?

Analysis by Save the Children estimates that UK aid cuts will leave 55 million of the world’s poorest without access to basic resources, 12 million without access to clean water or sanitation and 2.9 million fewer children in education. This year’s cuts to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, alone will mean 400,000 fewer lives saved.

Let me be clear about what all that means on the ground: in the DRC, a flagship girls’ education programme that we supported will close early next year, and 170,000 children, mostly girls, will lose access to education. Other hon. Members have mentioned Yemen. In the DRC, around 27 million people face acute food insecurity, while cholera and measles spread unchecked. In Afghanistan, half the population—23 million people—require humanitarian assistance. All those are unprioritised by Government cuts. I could go on.

The Liberal Democrats believe Britain can and must reclaim its leadership on development. We need a clear road map to restore the legally enshrined 0.7% aid target. I ask the Minister: will the Government rule out any further cuts, and set out a plan to return to 0.7%?

We must embrace the role that the US has abandoned as the facilitating and convening power. I urge the Government to take up that mantle again, as successive Governments have done before, including Prime Ministers from the Minister’s own party—Blair and Brown, pledging to make poverty history. Before she retorts that those were the good times, I remind her that the coalition Government reached 0.7% for the first time, after the financial crash of 2008. Those were choices. This Government’s choice is to follow Boris Johnson, but to cut deeper, and to join the Conservatives and Reform in a race to the bottom.

I urge the Government to retrieve their progressive mantle; reverse these cuts; restore our legally enshrined commitment and reclaim our leadership on the world stage. Let us make sure that Britain’s generosity, leadership and belief in humanity remain not only a lifeline but a light in our ever-turbulent world.