Starmer setting ‘dangerous course’ with cuts to UK aid budget, says senior Labour MP

A senior Labour MP has accused Keir Starmer of setting a “dangerous course” for the UK with the government’s foreign aid cuts, announced last week in order to fund a defence spending uplift.

Sarah Champion, chair of the House of Commons international development committee, said the prime minister is “taking the axe to our most effective tool for reducing global conflicts and for increasing our own national security.”

Speaking in a commons estimates debate on the government’s spending plans for the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Champion also alerted MPs to the fact that a “scandalously large amount of ODA [official development assistance] has been diverted primarily to the Home Office to support asylum seekers and refugees in the UK.”

She told the House: “The former US defence secretary General James Mattis was asked in congress whether it is wise to properly fund international development work. He replied, ‘If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.’

“It pains me to say, but the prime minister is setting exactly this dangerous course for the UK. By planning to take 40 per cent out of ODA, he’s taking the axe to our most effective tool for reducing global conflicts and for increasing our own national security.”

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