Anneliese Dodds has resigned

Sir Richard Dannatt (former army chief) says that cutting aid is a "strategic mistake".

I agree one can't enumerate them, A few spring to mind: the late Robin Cook's resignation over the Iraq war, Anthony Eden over appeasing Hitler, Sajid Javid as CofE when Johnson required him to share advisors.

MaizieD

Grantanow

A principled resignation but of little consequence.

How many resignations on points of principle are 'consequential', Grantanow?

I don't think you can put a number on it, rather to look at if there is a resignation, what it is all about in terms of what of course are differing views within the Labour Party, and really valid policy debates. It would be a sorry state of affairs if there wasn't debate and disagreement.

I doubt there is a single person in the Labour Party that agrees we want to cut many areas of aid, but there are so many different priorities we're not going to agree and sometimes it crosses someones "red line" as in this case.

Grantanow

A principled resignation but of little consequence.

How many resignations on points of principle are 'consequential', Grantanow?

A principled resignation but of little consequence.

You are welcome. I thought I'd post that in view of what you said upthread about not being able to find information.

Then it's fairly easy to find information online about specific countries e.g. search on how ODA is spend on Zimbabwe leads to this ...

www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-zimbabwe-development-partnership-summary/fb44cf0f-8a60-4ffa-aa87-64fd9226b687#fcdo-zimbabwe-oda-allocation

... where we see that the budget was increased from 29.5 million to 31 million for 2024/25. For 2023/24 £29.5 million was spent: women and girls, £15.5 million; climate and nature, £4.7 million; global health, £3 million; governance, £3 million; humanitarian, £2.5 million; investment, £0.8 million

So over half the budget is spent on programmes which support women and girls. The document explains how.

Thank you for this.

I also applaud Dodd’s stand and agree with MaizieD that there are other ways to increase the defence budget if only the Government would ease its own fiscal rules, but if this is the way it intends to go then for information, this is the breakdown of Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending for 2024/25:

questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-02-06/hcws421

The UK does not send money to China under its regional programmes and only 2 million to India under its regional allocation.

ODA is not always about poverty and conflict. The money send to India is to address areas like climate change mitigation and aiming strengthen strategic partnerships between countries through increased trade, investment, and cooperation on security issues.

To quote ICAI (Independent Commission for Aid Impact) In recent years, the UK has transitioned away from funding traditional poverty-focused aid projects in India, but still provides substantial aid in the form of development investment, research partnerships and other activities that support the bilateral relationship.

Read ICAI’s 2023 report on China here:

icai.independent.gov.uk/uk-aid-to-china-is-falling-rapidly-but-greater-transparency-is-needed/

What will happen over the coming weeks is a line by line review of where money is currently going and what can feasibly be cut with least impact.

The government has already announced the halting of aid to Rwanda due to the government in Kigali supporting a rebel group that has captured parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The 2024/25 ODA budget for Rwanda is 31.2 million.

One of the larger costs in the ODA is housing asylum seekers in hotels. I suspect few realised that was part of ODA. This figure should drop if the government can reduce the number of irregular migrants while processing, returning or rehoming refugees more quickly.

This ICAI report is out of date now but provides some explanation of why housing asylum seekers is part of the ODA budget.

icai.independent.gov.uk/home-office-asylum-costs-could-no-longer-be-counted-as-aid-under-illegal-migration-act/

Under international rules, in the first year after arrival, some of the costs associated with supporting refugees and asylum seekers, such as housing and food, qualify as aid. This category of ODA is referred to as ‘in-donor refugee costs’. The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which governs the use of ODA, states that such aid must only be used for humanitarian purposes and not any form of coercion, such as detention or deportation.

It’s fairly easy to discover where some specific allocations go e.g. 76.9 million for the British World Service. This is used to support the World Service's mission to provide trusted news globally. The funding helps to protect the World Service's foreign language services and its role in promoting the UK's values and global presence. The BBC World Service provides news in 42 languages, including English, to a global audience of 318 million.

I don’t know if it is really the case but if aid is going to China and India I hope they cut that over other countries. They are rich nations these days . Whether they share their great wealth with the populace is up to them.

Predictably, I will point out that there was no need to cut any budget in order to increase defence spending. But the government insists on wearing its self imposed economic strait jacket.

They could have taxed wealth or issued ‘defence bonds’. They would have had no problem with finding purchasers. Or used frozen Russian assets..

I applaud Dodd for standing up for her principles.

Grammaretto

Good for her! It's an absolute tragedy. People will die because of this decision to spend the foreign aid budget on the armed forces and armaments.

More people will die if they do not.

It won't be the direct humanitarian aid gets cut, we aren't going to stop the food aid or starve people, but sadly other worthwhile some longer term projects will be cut and we'll lose contacts.

Good for her! It's an absolute tragedy. People will die because of this decision to spend the foreign aid budget on the armed forces and armaments.

Good for her if she feels really strongly about this.

However, she is still an MP.

We are not giving up and letting them have it all. There is still a foreign aid budget, but smaller than it was.

🤔

It's a reduction from 0.5% to 0.3% of GNI.
Why are we sending aid to China?

True, but that's not really a reason to give up and let them have it all.

Ilovecheese

Barleyfields

Ilovecheese

Well done her. It is not a choice between defending ourselves and giving aid overseas, the one supports the other.

The one supports the other? Perhaps you could explain.

It is as MayBee70 says. I will quote the post:
"As she pointed out, the worry is that Russia and China will now get a foothold in the countries that we are reducing aid to. There’s so much more to aid than people realise. And it will result in more people fleeing their homelands for somewhere they think will be safer. What a mess the world is in."

China's money and influence is in most countries anyway, including the UK.

She was a good hard working member of the cabinet.

Barleyfields

Ilovecheese

Well done her. It is not a choice between defending ourselves and giving aid overseas, the one supports the other.

The one supports the other? Perhaps you could explain.

It is as MayBee70 says. I will quote the post:
"As she pointed out, the worry is that Russia and China will now get a foothold in the countries that we are reducing aid to. There’s so much more to aid than people realise. And it will result in more people fleeing their homelands for somewhere they think will be safer. What a mess the world is in."

She's a good minister and I hope she gets another cabinet post next t ime there's a reshuffle.
Unfortunately the defence of the realm is the first duty of government.

I admire her moral compass but disagree with her decision.

I sympathise with Dodds feelings but I support the government’s action.
Dodds is more to the left than centre so I understand her resignation. It is principled but won’t change anything other than give those who want to criticise and under in the government a cheer

Ilovecheese

Well done her. It is not a choice between defending ourselves and giving aid overseas, the one supports the other.

The one supports the other? Perhaps you could explain.

(where aid goes)