THE Prime Minister’s decision to cut the international aid budget to fund an increase in UK defence spending is “simply wrong”, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, has warned.
On Tuesday, Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons that cutting foreign aid spending from 0.5 to 0.3 per cent of GDP was “not an announcement I am happy to make”, and insisted that the UK would continue to support humanitarian efforts in Sudan, Ukraine, and Gaza.
Bishop Snow posted on X on Wednesday: “Taking money from overseas aid is absolutely the wrong thing to do. I was proud of Starmer’s willingness to stand with Ukraine but increasing defence spending in this way, and for these very dubious reasons, is simply wrong.”
The Archbishop of York agreed. He said in a statement: “Defence and development are not competing priorities; they are complementary. Properly used, development funding helps prevent conflicts, tackle instability, and build a safer, more just world. Cutting aid in this way risks exacerbating the very crises that lead to insecurity.”
Contributing to a short debate on defence and security in the House of Lords on Wednesday, the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, said: “We need to reject this false choice between defence spending and development spending. They are not competing priorities. This is not just about reputation. Properly used development funding helps to prevent conflict. It tackles instability and provides a greater and more just world.”
Sir Keir plans to increase defence spending by 2.5 per cent of GDP from April 2027 — the equivalent of £13.4 billion. This represents the biggest increase in defence spending since the Cold War. He also plans to spend three per cent of GDP on defence in the next parliament, “as economic and fiscal conditions allow”.
“It is my first duty as Prime Minister to keep our country safe,” he said. “In an ever more dangerous world, increasing the resilience of our country so we can protect the British people, resist future shocks, and bolster British interests, is vital.”
Archbishop Cottrell urged the Government to ensure that the increase in defence spending included robust investment in preventative diplomacy and conflict resolution mechanisms.
“True security is not only about military strength—it is also about addressing the root causes of conflict, poverty, and instability. I am asking that the Government conducts a full assessment of how these aid cuts will affect existing UK-funded development programmes and to take every possible step to shield the world’s most vulnerable from the consequences of this decision.”
In 2021, the Conservative Government reduced UK spending on overseas aid from 0.7 per cent of the country’s gross national income (GNI) to 0.5 per cent, pledging to restore it “when fiscal circumstances allow”. It has not since been restored.
In its election manifesto, last June, Labour said that it was “committed to restoring development spending at the level of 0.7 per cent of gross national income as soon as fiscal circumstances allow”.
Sir Keir said on Tuesday: “This difficult choice reflects the evolving nature of the threat and the strategic shift required to meet it whilst maintaining economic stability. . . Meeting the fiscal rules is non-negotiable, and the Government will take the tough but necessary decisions to ensure they are met.”
Responding to the announcement, Christian Aid’s director of policy, public affairs and campaigns, Osai Ojigho, said: “The world’s most marginalised communities are facing a dramatic and deepening poverty crisis, made worse by conflict and the climate crisis.
“These cuts — a political decision echoing Trump’s race to the bottom on aid — are nothing short of a betrayal that will erode trust and fan the flames of global insecurity.”
President Trump has repeatedly said that NATO governments are not spending enough on defence. Among his executive orders when he took office last month was to freeze almost all foreign-aid programmes, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as part of his “America First” agenda — a decision which has been widely condemned by global aid agencies. In 2023, Washington distributed $72 billion in foreign aid across nearly 180 countries.
Sir Keir was due to meet President Trump at the White House yesterday, where he was expected to discuss the importance of Ukraine’s independence, US security guarantees, and European involvement in peace talks. Speaking at an international summit in Kyiv on Monday, on supporting Ukraine for three years since the Russian invasion, Sir Keir suggested that President Trump had “created an opportunity” to end the war.
Ms Ojigho said: “We must reject the false choice being spun between defence spending and fulfilling our responsibilities to people in crisis. Ministers can show global leadership by taxing wealthy polluters and compelling private creditors to cancel debts to countries in crisis, but will they?”
The chief executive of World Vision UK, Fola Komolafe, said that the charity was “well placed to know the devastation” that the UK cuts would cause for children and families who were battling drought, floods, hunger, disease, and malnutrition.
“This move completely undermines the UK Government’s recent commitment to international development. . . Just when a demonstration of global leadership is most needed, this is a huge leap backwards.
“Difficult decisions on spending must be made, but these should not be at the cost of children’s lives. It’s the most vulnerable, those living in areas that are fragile due to effects of conflict or climate-change factors, that will bear the brunt of these decisions.”
The charity, like other aid agencies, called for a “review and reversal of this short-sighted decision-making”.
The chief executive of Tearfund, Nigel Harris, agreed that the “appalling” decision would leave families hungry, children without an education, and women’s rights “sidelined”. He said: “At a time of unprecedented humanitarian suffering, drastically cutting overseas aid is indefensible and short sighted. It undermines hard won gains and signals a retreat from tackling extreme poverty, conflict, and global health crises.”
The director and chief executive of the Roman Catholic agency CAFOD, Christine Allen, said that “more people will die, and many more will lose their livelihoods” as a result of the cut. “Coming so soon after the USAID freeze, this is another lifeline being pulled away from those in desperate need, at a time when the world feels increasingly precarious.
“The UK has a choice to make: to support those in need, or turn our backs on them. . . If we are seeing the decline of aid to support the world’s most vulnerable communities, then the Government must show serious ambition to reform the global economy — including the broken global debt system — to enable those most in need to emerge from poverty.”
This story was updated on 27 February to include comments from the Bishops