Labour: City of London can help Britain better target its foreign aid

Labour’s Lisa Nandy has suggested the City of London can play a key role in helping Britain better target its foreign aid budget towards “extreme poverty”.

Nandy stressed that if elected, she would ensure aid was spent on “reasons the public supports” and highlighted the Square Mile’s role as a financial powerhouse in enabling that. 

The shadow international development secretary said she wanted to see more of the UK’s multi-billion foreign aid budget go towards “some of the poorest people in some of the most vulnerable countries in the world” as well as solving global problems that “impact Britain”.

She told an audience of journalists at a Parliamentary lunch event: “One of the contributions we think we can make as a country is around access to finance for middle income countries. 

“Because of the City of London, we have the potential to play an outsized role in the global financial system. 

“And middle income countries can escape the route of indebtedness and climate change and we can focus our aid again on extreme poverty in every part of the world.”

Ministers cut aid spending from 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) to 0.5 per cent in 2020 as a “temporary measure” due to Covid-19 – with levels not set to rise until after 2027.

According to a House of Commons library research briefing, GNI fell from a peak of £15.1bn in 2019 to £11.4bn in 2021, before rising to £12.8bn in 2022. But the 2022 rise saw around 29 per cent of the cash swallowed up by the UK meeting the costs of housing refugees. 

Nandy admitted resolving the situation could not be done “overnight” and said Rachel Reeve’s work on generating economic growth would “in itself” help to grow the aid budget.

“The next Labour government is likely to inherit the worst economic situation since the Second World War; we’re not going to be able to reverse the cuts to aid overnight,” she said. “The biggest problem with the aid budget at the moment, is that a third of it isn’t being used for aid.

“Getting a grip on the asylum chaos; ending the situation where asylum seekers are languishing in hotels for years at great costs to the taxpayer; getting some rules and consistency around the way that we spend… that’s our priority.”

Nandy also reflected on the SNP ceasefire amendment vote last night that saw 10 shadow frontbenchers, including Jess Phillips, quit their jobs to rebel against the Labour whip.

“In the end, as a member of Parliament, you have to be able to live with yourself, with your decisions and with your own conscience,” she said.

She called the resignations a “real loss to the frontbench” but added: “I know that they’ll do incredible things and make an incredible contribution wherever they sit in Parliament.”