Boris Johnson blasted by MPs as he scraps UK’s overseas aid department
The Prime Minister has merged the Department for International Development with the Foreign Office.
Boris Johnson has scrapped the UK’s overseas aid department after 23 years to the fury of opposition MPs and former ministers.
The PM today announced that he has merged the Department for International Development (Dfid) with the Foreign Office, creating a new department, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. The merge will also see the new department taking control of the UK’s £14.5 billion overseas aid budget.
Mr Johnson told the Commons: ‘We must now strengthen our position in an intensely competitive world by making sensible changes. And so I have decided to merge Dfid with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to create a new department … the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called the announcement ‘a distraction’ from how poorly the Government is handling the pandemic.
Sir Keir said: ‘A few hours ago the ONS figures showed a fall of 600,000 people on the payroll. The economy contracted by 20% in April and we could be on a verge of the return to mass unemployment, something we’ve not seen for a generation.
‘We’ve also one of the highest death rolls from Covid-19 in the world, at least 41,700 deaths and likely to be far greater than that. And in the last hour the Government has U-turned on free school meals.’
He added: ‘This statement is intended to deflect attention from all of that and can I assure the Prime Minister it will not work.’
Sir Keir said the UK cannot play a leading role in the world by abolishing Dfid, saying: ‘I want to see Britain as a moral force for good in the world, a force for global justice and co-operation, leading the world on global security, leading the global search for a vaccine, leading the fight against poverty, climate change and gender inequality.
‘We don’t achieve that by abolishing one of the best performing and important departments.’
Tory MP Andrew Mitchell, who served as international development secretary during the coalition government, said closing Dfid would be a ‘quite extraordinary mistake’.
The former Cabinet minister said: ‘First, it would destroy one of the most effective and respected engines of international development anywhere in the world .
‘Second, many of the senior figures who are key to Britain’s role as a development superpower will likely leave and go elsewhere in the international system – at a stroke destroying a key aspect of global Britain.
‘Third, it is completely unnecessary as the Prime Minister exercises full control over Dfid’s strategy and priorities through the National Security Council.’
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, said the PM is ‘ripping apart the structures of UK aid’. He claimed the merger would see the UK ‘wind down aid for the world’s poorest’.
‘If these are the values of global Britain, then they do not represent the values of the vast majority of the people of Scotland,’ Mr Blackford fumed.
The Prime Minister told the Commons: ‘This will unite our aid with our diplomacy and bring them together in our international effort.’
Earlier, Mr Johnson said the Government remains committed to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid. He said: ‘Those well-intentioned decisions of 23 years ago were right for their time.
‘They paved the way for Britain to meet the UN target of 0.7% of national income on aid, a goal that was achieved by the coalition government in 2013 and has been maintained… ever since.
‘Including this year and it remains our commitment.’
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