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A foreign minister resigned following Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a cut in UK foreign aid spending.
Baroness Sugg resigned from her junior ministerial post after the government abandoned a commitment from the Conservative manifesto to fund the foreign aid budget at the equivalent of 0.7% of gross national income.
The chancellor’s move has sparked fury among charities and some conservatives, with former Prime Minister David Cameron, who signed the 0.7% pledge into law while in Downing Street, called it “a very sad moment.” .
“Putting food on people’s tables, vaccinating children, preventing mothers from dying in childbirth, it was brilliant things, we were doing it and it said something brilliant about this country, and it is sad that we are away from that,” he said. the former prime minister. said.
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The reduction in foreign aid is ‘regrettable’
By announcing the cut in foreign aid in his one year expense review on Wednesday, Lord sunak Instead, he said, the government would spend 0.5% of gross national income on foreign aid.
The Chancellor told the House of Commons the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 The pandemic meant “sticking rigidly to spending 0.7% of our national income on foreign aid is hard for the British people to justify.”
Sunak told MPs that a cut in foreign aid spending in 2021 would be followed by an “intention” to return to the 0.7% commitment “when the fiscal situation allows.”
In her resignation letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Baroness Sugg wrote: “I think it is fundamentally wrong to abandon our commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on development.
“This promise must be kept through both tough times and good times.
“Given the link between our development spending and the health of our economy, the economic recession has already led to significant cuts this year and I do not believe we should further reduce our support at a time of unprecedented global crisis.”
He also told the prime minister that cutting foreign aid “runs the risk of undermining his efforts to promote a global Britain and will diminish our power to influence other nations to do the right thing.”
Baroness Sugg had also been Johnson’s special envoy for girls’ education.
In his reply, the prime minister said he was “very sorry” to have received the letter of resignation from the pair, and thanked Baroness Sugg for her “excellent service”.
Chancellor Dominic Raab said: “Liz has been a great minister and we will miss her deeply.
“She can be proud of her record in advocating for girls’ education, promoting gender equality, supporting our overseas territories and the UK’s vital relations in the Caribbean.
“I’m sorry to see you go.”
The government has abandoned a conservative manifesto pledge on foreign aid
The UK is legally committed to spending 0.7% of gross national income on foreign aid each year, according to legislation passed during Cameron’s tenure.
The Johnson administration is now expected to introduce legislation to reverse that commitment.
Baroness Sugg previously served as Downing Street’s director of operations and campaigns during Cameron’s tenure.
The former prime minister nominated her for a title of nobility when he resigned from No. 10 in 2016.
In a Financial Times article, Raab described a “tough but necessary and temporary” decision to cut the aid budget.
“We take it with regret and we will return to 0.7% as soon as the fiscal situation allows it,” he said.
The foreign secretary also promised to “double the effectiveness of our aid.”
Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was one of those who criticized the chancellor’s cut in the foreign aid budget, calling it “shameful and wrong.”
Labor’s shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds claimed that Sunak had “turned his back on the world’s poorest.”
Former Conservative Cabinet Minister Jeremy Hunt claimed that cutting foreign aid would make the UK “poorer in the eyes of the world, because people will worry that we are abandoning a noble ideal that we in this country have done more for. defend anyone “.
Former Conservative Cabinet Minister Andrew Mitchell told Sunak that the cut would be “the cause of 100,000 preventable deaths, primarily among children.”
However, other conservative deputies supported the measure.
Philip Davies said that “real world” people would support the cut, adding: “I suspect that the vast majority of the British public will not wonder why it has [Mr Sunak] cutting so much, you’re probably wondering why we keep spending so much. “
Martin Vickers told the House of Commons that he believed that “a temporary measure is the right one” if “we are going to continue to ask our constituents to make sacrifices.”
