Foreign Aid budget cut

[MellowBird85]

Do you agree with it?

YANBU - Yes it was the right decision to cut it.
YABU - No they should’ve left it alone.

They should have left it alone.

However, going by what one reads on MN, it sometimes feels like UK should be getting foreign aid, rather than giving it......

We are borrowing billions. To continue give the same amount of Foreign aid is nonsensical. We should be ploughing more money into health research and vaccines. Thst would help the rest of the world more effectively than continuing to prop up current (often corrupt) aid structures. Very little of that money actually gets to the right place.

I can’t believe we give money to China - and I wonder where that money ends up.

I was just about to say that @Andante57. I was quite shocked to hear aid goes to China. I think the government knows this will be a very popular decision with the public.

ANdrew Mitchell was very eloquent on the subject of why it should not be cut. "The effect is that probably we will have 100,000 avoidable deaths; 7.6 million women and girls will not get access to contraception - which we have previously promised, and we'll probably take one million girls out of school."

I can't see how anyone can justify this. It's in our own interest to boost the rights of women across the world. Societies where women are encouraged to do more than reproduce tend to be places where we can sell goods and services to. They are more stable societies, less likely to foster extremism. And a time when we need all the soft power we can drum up.

There are times in life when we have to think of ourselves first. I'm not saying completely forget the innocents in other countries, but we are paying billions towards vaccines and cures at the minute, all of which will help aid the poor countries of the world too (I heard we've paid for so many vaccine doses and a percentage of those are going to poorer countries)

Plus...if our economy goes under then we won't be able to start aid payments again in future. (Sort of like on an airplane you have to put your own mask on before helping others...you can't help anyone if your dead yourself)

YANBU

Foreign Aid has always thought to be a tricky one.

It's of course good to help those across the world but when did it become our responsibility?

It's like for example I have savings for my son. It's a few thousand pounds I've saved up over the years, like many people.
Now theres children out there who don't have a meal or clean drinking water and I could give that money to them but it's my money, I've worked for it and its going to my son, hes my priority and then whatever money I have left over I give to charity.

I see Foreign Aid as the government taking our money which we have earned and then deciding for us that it's best to go elsewhere rather in our own economy.

To give billions away each year when there is children starving and poverty in our country is just ludicrous. Pour more money into the economy and then give a sensible amount to Foreign Aid

On one hand it’s already a percentage and as we’re in the shit economically it was going to be much lower than normal before the cut.

On the other, AF is right that we don’t seem to know where a lot of it ending up. And the very idea of giving aid to a country like India who are prioritising a space program over investing in stuff like plumbing so people have access to toilets and women don’t face getting raped while going out for a wee is fucking enraging. I used to work for an international aid charity and I have to say that the general consensus of the staff was that if it worked it wouldn’t still be needed. We are propping up shoddy corrupt governments and public sympathy in the U.K. for playing the world’s benefactor out of post colonial guilt while increasing numbers here are relying on food banks and risking sleeping rough is inevitably decreasing by the day.

The government may be out of step with our past prime ministers but they’re the ones currently responsible for the direction of our country and its financial future. They’ll have polled the hell out of it before deciding to cut it and people seem to mostly be in agreement.

Until recently we were underwriting projects for basic needs in India - meanwhile the government there has a space programme and nuclear weapons. Until we have some common sense on where it goes - ensuring it actually helps people who need it - it's madness for us to borrow this money to give it away.

Awful decision but the right decision, I think, although it is painful to say so.

@Andante57

I can’t believe we give money to China - and I wonder where that money ends up.

Very little of the aid money goes to good causes, what happened to the Live Aid money? Too much ends iup in the hands of the local big men.

Of course it should be cut. We are in the middle of a financial catastrophe here in the UK. There are plenty of charities people can give to if they feel strongly about it.

Yes it had to be cut. I think most people aren’t against it if it was spent wisely but supporting other countries space programs....err no.

And the very idea of giving aid to a country like India who are prioritising a space program over investing in stuff like plumbing so people have access to toilets and women don’t face getting raped while going out for a wee is fucking enraging.

I had no idea about this @AnneLovesGilbert Absolutely diabolical.

I can't help but remember that saying about being nice to people on the way up, as you may well need them on the way down.

And that's before you consider that quite a lot of aid goes to help countries improve their own industries, which then makes their goods and food cheaper for us to buy.

But then investing in the future is simply so unEnglish as to be almost unheard of. What with the expert knowledge of prices and all that ....

Yes it needs to be cut and instead we should lend our support to the people of these countries by piling on pressure on the government’s of these countries.

Stop buying crap you don’t need made in some of these countries. Be willing to pay more for stuff by buying less shit and encourage manufacturing in countries with actual worker rights where women aren’t treated as property, where near genocide/ethnic cleansing still takes place.

I’m not personally in favour of babies dying just because they live in other countries so no, I am not in favour of the cut.

From a purely self-interest perspective, I'm torn. On one hand, we give aid to India which, unlike us, has its own space programme (so fucking ridiculous) but on the other hand, our interventions abroad make it less likely 100s of millions of refugees will suddenly appear at our doorstep. Again, purely self-interest.

I think at least in the short term, we need to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first, or there won't be any aid left to give.

I don't think it is an easy decision. I think the problem is you see stiff in the press about aid being supplied where iT should be needed. China and India are examples, although I thought part of the reason we gave them.aid for so long was to.compensate for occupying the country for so long. I would have no issue with money going to help refugees or women and children who need it. But I'm.not convinced that's where it always ends up.

Cutting the aid budget was absolutely the right decision, in fact cutting it further than the government has done would be fully justified.

No, I’m not a Tory.

In normal times 🇬🇧 is an extremely generous donor, and rightly so. But we are in an economic crisis, foreign aid programs are a nice-to-have, and difficult decisions have to be made. I’m surprised by the media / Twitter backlash about the decision. Yet again, we see that liberal elites in London are hopelessly out of touch with mainstream public opinion.

Most foreign aid is to benefit UK strategic interests and much of it goes to UK companies. It doesn't get given to poor people or to governments of other countries.
It's more like giving someone vouchers to buy food when you own the supermarket next door.
It seems short sighted to cut it as Britain needs the soft power at the moment.
As a proportion of government spend it's tiny and won't make any difference to us.

I didn’t know this had happened - Thanks OP. It’s absolutely the right decision!

The corrupt aid-structures of countries we give to are a huge significant issue within this question but I don't think it should be cut. Britain historically has done so much damage around the world e.g. former colonies that they haven't even begun to make solid reparations for.

I am surprised people are questioning social responsibility towards people who need help because the government doesn't care about them...

YABU yes the UK will suffer due to the pandemic, but there are others that will suffer far more.
Sadly it's a policy that will be popular, which is an awful reflection on us as a country.