Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Wednesday was accused of weakening Britain’s global influence and a “shameful” abandonment of the world’s poor, as he pressed ahead with plans to cut £4bn a year from the UK’s aid budget.
Liz Sugg, minister for sustainable development, quit in protest, saying Mr Sunak’s decision to scrap the law guaranteeing 0.7 per cent of Britain’s national income should be spent on overseas aid was “fundamentally wrong”.
Baroness Sugg, in a resignation letter to prime minister Boris Johnson, said: “Cutting UK aid risks undermining your efforts to promote a global Britain and will diminish our power to influence other nations to do what’s right.”
Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, added his voice to the criticism: “The cut in the aid budget — made worse by no set date for restoration — is shameful and wrong,” he said.
But Mr Sunak insisted the decision to cut the aid budget from 0.7 per cent of GDP to 0.5 per cent was…