David Lammy says key projects in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan to be protected as aid spending slashed – UK politics live

Good morning. At Westminster MPs are still absorbing the implications of Keir Starmer’s decision to slash the aid budget to fund an increase in defence spending. Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey have all the details in their overnight story.

John Healey, the defence secretary, has been giving interviews this morning and he has faced a lot of questions about whether this announcement was entirely about pleasing Donald Trump. “No, it’s not,” he told Sky News. Healey pointed out that raising defence spending by 2.5% of GDP was a Labour manifesto commitment. (That’s true, but the manifesto did not say it would happen by 2027 – or that aid spending would be cut to fund it.)

But Healey did not try to pretend that the timing of the announcement was unrelated to the fact that Starmer has his first meeting with Trump since the inauguration in the White House tomorrow. “President Trump, over the last two weeks, has been very direct in his challenge,” Healey said.

For Starmer, committing to higher defence spending ahead of the Washington visit is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the meeting to be a success.

But slashing aid spending is a hard ask for anyone in the Labour party, and particularly for David Lammy. As foreign secretary, he now controls the international aid budget (because Boris Johnson abolished DfID and made it part of the Foreign Office) and earlier this month Lammy told the Guardian that Trump’s decision to tear up the US aid budget was a “big strategic mistake”. (Lammy was talking to Pippa Crerar about three weeks ago; presumably he would not have said what he did if he knew what was coming in the UK, and so this fits with reports that No 10 only started working up the aid cuts plan about two weeks ago.) Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, posted this on social media yesterday about Lammy’s plight.

This is unfortunate. Lammy self evidently not been able to protect the foreign office budget since only weeks ago urged the US not to cut its aid budget saying it would be a big strategic mistake. By cutting to 0.3% of GDP, the UK, once an aid superpower, joins Italy in the G7 in being one of the least generous of industrialised countries. Fear of Reform, and Trump, drives No 10’s and Treasury choices.

But Lammy has written an article for the Guardian defending the move. It is not clear yet which aspects of the aid budget will be cut the most to fund the extra defence spending, but Lammy says projects in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan will be protected.

To make this [higher defence spending] commitment, and stick within our fiscal rules, we have had to make the extremely difficult decision to lower our spending on international development. As the prime minister said, we do not pretend any of this is easy. This is a hard choice that no government – let alone a Labour government – makes lightly. I am proud of our record on international development. It helps address global challenges from health to migration, contributes to prosperity, and supports the world’s most vulnerable people. It grows both our soft power and our geopolitical clout, while improving lives. For all of those reasons, this government remains committed to reverting spending on overseas aid to 0.7% of gross national income when the fiscal conditions allow.

But we are a government of pragmatists not ideologues – and we have had to balance the compassion of our internationalism with the necessity of our national security.

As we reduce the overseas aid budget, we will protect the most vital programmes in the world’s worst conflict zones of Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan. But there can be no hiding from the fact that many programmes doing vital work will have to be put on hold. The work of making further tough choices about programmes will proceed at pace over the weeks and months ahead, but our core priorities will remain the same. My vision for a reformed Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office fit for this more contested and dangerous world, in which diplomacy is more important than ever, remains paramount.

Here is the full article.

And here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Water company bosses give evidence to the Commons environment committee.

9.40am: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, holds a press conference.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

After 12.30pm: Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, makes a statement to MPs about the government’s response to the recommendations from the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire.

After 1.30pm: MPs begin a debate on a Conservative party motion criticising the impact of government tax policies on families busineses. Later there will be a debate on a second Tory motion on the Chagos Islands.

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