Cuts to the foreign aid budget.

The answer surely is to make it clear that anyone trying to enter our country illegally by boat, lorry or by any other means will be automatically excluded from applying for asylum, and they would be sent home.

No, that's not the answer at all. We would be punishing the people who we are meant to be helping. They're not going to say, ah well, we'll just be sent back, lets not go... They'll arrive in the dark in dangerous places. They'll pack into the back of vans and not expect to be caught and then they'll suffocate.

Australia should not be held up as an example of how to treat refugees and asylum seekers, not ever.

www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/08/australia-abuse-neglect-of-refugees-on-nauru/

I wholeheartedly agree that we should give aid, but we should not be sending money to countries spending huge amounts on nuclear weapons or on the Space Race.

They are right to reduce the aid payments for a short time. The money needs to be spent here at the moment. It will go back to how it was eventually.

We are a rich country - hard to believe right now! But we have the good things rich countries can offer - for instance health care free at the point of delivery -our wonderful NHS! And free education to age 18, and roads maintained (up to a point!), clean water in our taps, and much more. We are in the G7 because we are rich. Billions of people in the world would think we live in paradise and would swap with us in a heart beat. Our aid is to help girls not be forced into marriage at a young age and instead be educated, to feed the hungry, to help the blind and people with diseases but no access to good health care. Reducing aid will lead to babies, children, adults, and older people dying unnecessarily. It will lead to many harms for desperately poor people.
Yes, there are abuses of aid, and everything should be done to prevent that, but the fact that it is imperfect should not prevent us from acting with generosity, humanity and compassion.
I think we should maintain our aid at the previous level and be glad and proud we are doing this.

We are not the richest country in the G7 by a long chalk, but thanks to David Cameron, we started giving by far the most money.
No one comes any where near us for generosity. Let’s look after our own - if we can!! Agree with the fact charity does not begin at home but surely we can try.
France, Germany, USA, China, Russia, don’t touch us for helping others.

I am all for helping others less fortunate overseas, but I really think we should sort our own country first.
We have homeless veterans and teenagers dying and begging on the streets and people who need life saving operations or medication they can’t get.
Our NHS is on its knees, so yes by all means give to foreign aid but please sort us out first.

We are struggling to be all things to all people. On one hand we need to send some Foreign Aid. On the other, our councils are crying out for funding to house the homeless, care for unaccompanied child migrants, etc. Our kids meanwhile, may not be starving, but are unable to access the mental health services they need and for each one of them who can't get it, the next generation will suffer.
I am not saying that we should scrap Foreign Aid but I do think the system needs a radical overhaul and a review of how we can best help.

lemongrove

You have to ask the question: as aid has been pouring into many countries, especially in Africa for such a long time, and charities such as Oxfam have also poured money into them for 60 years.....why are women and children still getting dirty water and carrying it in pots?Why are schools no better than they were in many areas? Why why why etc.
Discount wars and famines from the why questioning of course, and examine what the governments of countries are doing for their own people?Does all the aid they receive allow them to sit back and do nothing?

Perhaps the wives of African leaders shopping in Paris and the leaders living in palaces of unimaginable luxury with fleets of luxury cars, private aircraft and sex workers flown in might explain. I haven’t made this up, I’ve seen evidence of it myself.

Perhaps if all the other countries paid the same as we do now after the reduction that would help! Not sure what all the fuss is about when the UN countries aren’t paying as much in the first place?

The inequality you describe hannahll is mirrored in our own country with billionaire oligarchs buying up swathes of properties in London cheek by jowl with homeless in doorways. Some poor countries do have wealth but it’s not equally distributed , foreign aid should be targeted to help those in need - clean water, medical supplies, education, surely no one could object to that?

When countries like India waste money on a space programme and the President of Mozambique spends £7 million on a private jet , why, exactly should we still be giving them aid?
And is it not financially prudent to reduce our debts rather than borrow more to give away

vegansrock

The inequality you describe hannahll is mirrored in our own country with billionaire oligarchs buying up swathes of properties in London cheek by jowl with homeless in doorways. Some poor countries do have wealth but it’s not equally distributed , foreign aid should be targeted to help those in need - clean water, medical supplies, education, surely no one could object to that?

Yes you’re right about the oligarchs buying up our country, that gets me too.
Sadly, even when we send aid in the form of food and other supplies rather than money it’s often stolen and sold at a huge profit. Even our old donated clothes find their way into markets instead of being given to the needy.
I recommend the book Dead Aid by the Nigerian writer Dambisa Mayo as an eye opener for anyone wondering about the effect of aid in poorer countries.
I’m not talking about disasters like drought and war, of course the world should help in those cases. I mean the everyday aid that doesn’t always help those it’s meant for, but makes a section if society rich and more corrupt.
I’ve seen this stuff going on.

It isn't quite as clear cut as it appears. Much of the foreign aid budget is actually earmarked for particular projects (often run by UK consultants) in the overseas countries. Also the effectiveness of the money that is sent abroad is reduced by the "cut" taken by overseas agents who administer the projects, or by crooked local politicians.
My comments are not guesswork, my DH worked for many years on overseas engineering projects financed by the aid budget or the World Bank and was appalled by how much was syphoned off before it reached its goal.
There is also the usual problem at the end of the financial year when those who have not used all their budgets are searching for ways to spend the cash so that they do not have their budget reduced next year - we all see this in local authorities here.

Brownowl564

When countries like India waste money on a space programme and the President of Mozambique spends £7 million on a private jet , why, exactly should we still be giving them aid?
And is it not financially prudent to reduce our debts rather than borrow more to give away

I absolutely agree with this

If you object to people coming here in search of a better life, the obvious answer is to help make their homelands better places to live. People don't want to leave their homes, their families, their culture and everything they know. They do it because they are trying to escape from war or poverty. Political solutions are the only answer to the first problem and foreign aid is the answer to the second.

The reason why economic migrants are usually young men is not because they see the UK as "a soft touch." It's because they are the ones most likely to survive the journey and to find a job, which they need not only for themselves but to help their families back home. If they didn't live in grinding poverty at home, they wouldn't need to leave in search of a better life. Reducing aid to their countries just makes their situation more desperate.

I think that cutting foreign aid is wrong because we have a moral obligation to help people who are suffering. However, if you don't believe in humanitarian reasons, there are practical reasons, such as reducing migration, political insecurity and transmission of diseases such as Covid-19. As for the financial impact on the UK, I have no belief that money diverted from foreign aid will go into useful projects here. Since the pandemic began, this government's corruption and squandering of public money has shown that we can't expect them to handle the country's finances with wisdom, or even basic honesty.

We have being helping these countries for as long has I can remember, yet they no further forward, so I want to know what there governments are doing with the money we sending them. Also government have said it’s a cut for temporary time not long term. If you in the red would you still keep to your normal outgoings no you wouldn’t you would have to make a few cuts until your out of the red.

I think so many people are naïve when it comes to foreign aid, I am 81 years old I remember taking money to school for the African children in 1946, my mother who was alive in the early nineteen hundreds took money to school for the African children. The western countries of the world have been pouring billions into these countries, and add that up since 1916, and you have got to wonder why things haven't changed out there. We are talking billions. I think its time the people out there tried to help themselves and to stop sitting back waiting for handouts all there lives. Aid workers are out there all the time from all over the world trying to teach them to farm and use tractors. They have wells bored for them, and are taught how to maintain them, once left to there own devices they don't bother. Take some of there money away and they might make an effort. Hardworking Africans have no time for the particular Africans that are taking everything for granted. The African government have given up on these idle people. Other countries in the world that are in desperate need, do at least try to help themselves. Its time a small country like Britain stopped trying to save the world and concentrate on the poverty and hardship in this country. TV adds aren't always what they appear to be.

We are in dire poverty in this country with the recession and the pandemic. More people than ever are using food banks, so I am glad they have cut the foreign aid budget. Charity begins at home.

I agree with all those who have put their necks on the line and said that for far too long, the UK has provided vast amounts of foreign Aid, as well as charities such as Oxfam, Christian Aid etc and to no avail. There is something fundamentally wrong that in my 56 years of living, we are still talking about undeveloped countries citizens having to drink dirty water or walk for miles to collect clean water. Where on earth has all the money gone which our country has sent, either by government ot charities Aid. I am not a heartless person but it would appear to me that if we continue throwing money at these countries, yet poverty and hardship is not decreasing, we are funding corrupt governments who will never use the money as it was meant to be used. It is absolutely ridiculous that we fund a country like India, with a multi billion space programme, but we send money to help their poor. Countries like this are seriously taking the piss. Their own citizens should be rebelling against their own governments policies. And as far as the argument about our never ending guilt regarding our past colonisation of these countries, for heavens sake, move on. We have more than paid our dues. We need to now concentrate on our own country after the devastation of covid 19. Countries in Africa, India, Bangladesh etc need to start justifying where foreign Aid has gone and where any future Aid would be spent, with the necessary evidence. Otherwise you might as well dig a large pit, put the money in and set light to it!!! Sorry but common sense has to prevail here, horse though it is

Not "HORSE" BUT HARSE... LOL

All I would like is my pension age to stop going up from 60 to 68 over the years, we should be able to retire at a reasonable age I have paid 44 years of NI

JenniferEccles

I think the government is perfectly correct in reducing our foreign aid budget.

Until countries like India get their priorities right and divert their space programme money (how much is it, hundreds billions?) to their poor, then we are perfectly justified in our decision.

For far too long, billions have been siphoned off by corrupt leaders, or wasted on daft projects.

Well said JenniferEccles

So much misinformation, blaming and selfishness.

Bluecat, I thought your post was excellent.

The proposed cut is £4bn, our national debt is £200 trillion. That's 0.002%. Its like saving 2p out of £1,000

Despite what Mrs Thatcher told us, running a country's economy is not like running a family budget.

Alegrias1, are you aiming your " so much misinformation, blaming and selfishness" at those of us who have given you the true facts?? We are neither of the above. If you want to give monthly to these causes, go right ahead. Do you by the way?? Like many others, I have given to Christian Aid, Oxfam, Unicef, save the children but nothing changes. We are not selfish in our opinions, but realists. Yes it is awful to see people trying to get into Europe by boats etc but this will never stop regardless of foreign aid. If foreign aid worked as it should in these countries, after all these decades of handing it out, there would be no property. I think you need a reality check

I'm aiming my comments at those who use the idea that we shouldn't help people in poverty because their governments are corrupt. Let them starve, ay? After all, that guy at the top is corrupt so they deserve all they get.

I'm aiming my comments at people who don't know the difference between emergency humanitarian aid and other types of aid, and who honesty think that we just hand money over to governments and let them spend it on what they like.

I'm aiming my comments at people who complain how bad things are here and can't see that this is because of a governmental choice to not spend money on things that would improve our society.

I'm aiming my comments at people who say "I've given money to charity all my life and there are still poor people!"

The attempt to turn it round and ask "what are you doing then?" is just laughable. Its not me who needs the reality check.