In revealing comments days before he was appointed to the role, Andrew Mitchell, a veteran overseas aid campaigner, said the fall in support for the first time in 18 months was accompanied by a political failure to make the case. benefits for the UK. “The fall in support is not just the cost of living, but because – unlike in the past under Blair, Brown, Cameron and May – the aid budget has not been defended,” Mitchell said. “When you have the Prime Minister describing British overseas aid as ‘some giant dot of money in the sky’, it’s not just wrong, but when the public is on hard times, it hurts support.” Johnson used those words to describe the aid budget when he folded the Department for International Development into the Department of State in 2020. Mitchell was responding to new data from the Development of Engagement Laboratory (Del), based at University College London and the University of Birmingham. Its latest regular survey found that public support for maintaining or increasing the foreign aid budget fell to 50% at the end of October – from 56% in June. Support has been at a high since Johnson cut the aid budget from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5% in spring 2021. While the cost of living crisis has been blamed for reducing public support for overseas aid, Mitchell said previous governments have been willing to support the aid program in times of economic turmoil. “In 2010-12, in a period of austerity after the global financial crisis, we pushed aid as hard as we could and saw public approval grow,” he said. “The difference is that we defended British aid.” Mitchell now faces two major challenges to the government’s aid budget. It is almost certain to be limited to 0.5% of gross national income for longer than planned as the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, seek savings before the autumn. But Mitchell’s biggest challenge is to reconcile how the aid money is spent, with billions now being used to cover costs related to asylum seekers and refugees, including programs for Afghanistan and Ukraine. The cost means there is little scope for planning spending within developing countries, with concerns that some programs will have to be cut. The UK is also under immediate pressure to contribute to a major global fund to tackle deadly diseases. Canada and the US are understood to be among those pushing Britain to increase its contribution of £1.4bn in 2019. However, the government is understood to be considering a contribution of around £800m – less than half of the requested amount. Del researchers said the fall in public enthusiasm for British overseas aid ended an 18-month run of rising support. It fell particularly among younger, lower-income non-degree holders who voted Conservative or Brexit in the 2019 general election. “The story of lost support is very much a political one,” said David Hudson, co-director of Del. “But support is still higher than before the 2021 aid cuts. The four-year low was 44% in January 2021, just months before the cuts. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “Following record-breaking generosity towards victims of the war in Ukraine, the British public may be feeling the squeeze of rising energy costs and food prices, which in turn appears to be affecting the sense of collective responsibility we saw with authority of Ukraine. war and the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said. The data showed that support for overseas aid also fell in Germany and France. A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesman said: “We remain committed to international development and our life-saving work continues to help those in need around the world. We are one of the world’s biggest aid donors, spending more than £11 billion on aid in 2021.”
