UK vote 'kisses goodbye' to landmark foreign aid target

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson saw off a rebellion in Parliament on Tuesday and won backing for a contentious foreign aid cut.

Aid will remain at 0.5 per cent of Britain’s national income – down from the 0.7 per cent threshold in place until earlier this year – after MPs approved the government’s plan by 333 votes to 298.

Ministers said the cut of about about £4 billion ($5.53bn) was temporary and would revert to the previous level when public finances recover from Covid-19.

Critics say this could take years and believe the cut will damage Britain’s standing in the world and harm some of the world’s poorest people.

Danny Sriskandarajah, the chief executive of Oxfam GB, said the result of the vote was a "disaster for the world’s poorest people".

"These cuts won’t balance the books; the Government is putting politics above the lives of world’s most vulnerable communities," he said.

Rebels in Mr Johnson’s own Conservative ranks, including his predecessor Theresa May, had plotted to defeat the government in Tuesday’s vote and maintain the 0.7 per cent commitment.

“We made a promise to the poorest people in the world. The government has broken that promise,” Ms May said during a three-hour debate in the House of Commons.

The government sought to win over wavering MPs by promising that the 0.7 per cent threshold would return as soon as two key tests are met.

The arms-length Office for Budget Responsibility will assess whether the criteria of falling public debt and no more reliance on borrowing for day-to-day spending are being met.

Former prime minister Theresa May was among the Conservative rebels who opposed the government. Getty Images

Mr Johnson urged MPs to back him by insisting the UK was not “somehow retreating from the field of international development or lacking in global solidarity”.

“I can assure any honourable member who wishes to make the case for aid, that they are, when it comes to me or anyone in the government, preaching to the converted,” he said.

“When you’re suddenly compelled to spend £407bn on sheltering our people from an economic hurricane never experienced in living memory, there must inevitably be consequences for other areas of public spending.”

Britain’s Chancellor Rishi Sunak hinted at tax rises or spending cuts in other areas of public spending if the government lost the vote.

Keeping the threshold at 0.7 per cent would have “likely consequences for the fiscal situation, including for taxation and current public spending plans”, he said.

If the government get their way today, we can kiss goodbye to 0.7

Andrew Mitchell

Opponents say the cut directly affects the welfare of vulnerable women and children, who Mr Johnson has described as a priority of Britain's G7 presidency this year.

Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said the cut was likely to last beyond the current Parliament, which is due to run until 2024.

“It matters that we keep our promises to the world’s poorest, particularly at such a time of global uncertainty,” he said.

He said cutting aid was a “false economy” because of the impact of development funds on reducing conflict and disease abroad.

Andrew Mitchell, a leader of the Conservative rebels, said the size of the foreign aid budget was already determined by the strength of the economy.

Reminding the government that its 0.7 per cent commitment was part of the Conservative manifesto at the last general election in 2019, he said: “It is, frankly, staggering that the only cut the government has made is to spending to help the poorest people on the planet in the middle of a pandemic.

“I am urging my colleagues to keep their promise and prevent hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths by voting against.”

Referring to the proposed double lock, he said: “Any of my colleagues who are satisfied by that, frankly, are being hoodwinked. If the government get their way today, we can kiss goodbye to 0.7.”

THE SIXTH SENSE

Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Rating: 5/5

COMPANY%20PROFILE

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RESULT

Al Hilal 4 Persepolis 0
Khribin (31', 54', 89'), Al Shahrani 40'
Red card: Otayf (Al Hilal, 49')

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%3Cp%3E1.%20Baghdad%2C%20Iraq%3Cbr%3E2.%20Manama%2C%20Bahrain%3Cbr%3E3.%20Dhahran%2C%20Saudi%20Arabia%3Cbr%3E4.%20Kuwait%20City%2C%20Kuwait%3Cbr%3E5.%20Ras%20Al%20Khaimah%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3E6.%20Ash%20Shihaniyah%2C%20Qatar%3Cbr%3E7.%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3E8.%20Cairo%2C%20Egypt%3Cbr%3E9.%20Riyadh%2C%20Saudi%20Arabia%3Cbr%3E10.%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cem%3ESource%3A%202022%20World%20Air%20Quality%20Report%3C%2Fem%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

MOST%20POLLUTED%20COUNTRIES%20IN%20THE%20WORLD

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Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history

- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon

- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.

- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater

- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.

- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.

- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.

-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.

Our family matters legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

MATCH INFO

Juventus 1 (Dybala 45')

Lazio 3 (Alberto 16', Lulic 73', Cataldi 90 4')

Red card: Rodrigo Bentancur (Juventus)

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SRI LANKA SQUAD

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What it means to be a conservationist

Who is Enric Sala?

Enric Sala is an expert on marine conservation and is currently the National Geographic Society's Explorer-in-Residence. His love of the sea started with his childhood in Spain, inspired by the example of the legendary diver Jacques Cousteau. He has been a university professor of Oceanography in the US, as well as working at the Spanish National Council for Scientific Research and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Biodiversity and the Bio-Economy. He has dedicated his life to protecting life in the oceans. Enric describes himself as a flexitarian who only eats meat occasionally.

What is biodiversity?

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, all life on earth – including in its forests and oceans – forms a “rich tapestry of interconnecting and interdependent forces”. Biodiversity on earth today is the product of four billion years of evolution and consists of many millions of distinct biological species. The term ‘biodiversity’ is relatively new, popularised since the 1980s and coinciding with an understanding of the growing threats to the natural world including habitat loss, pollution and climate change. The loss of biodiversity itself is dangerous because it contributes to clean, consistent water flows, food security, protection from floods and storms and a stable climate. The natural world can be an ally in combating global climate change but to do so it must be protected. Nations are working to achieve this, including setting targets to be reached by 2020 for the protection of the natural state of 17 per cent of the land and 10 per cent of the oceans. However, these are well short of what is needed, according to experts, with half the land needed to be in a natural state to help avert disaster.

U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES

UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
Saturday 15 January: v Canada
Thursday 20 January: v England
Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh

UAE squad
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly, Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya Shetty, Kai Smith