UK Treasury Blocks 'Non-Essential' Overseas Aid Spending, Reports Say

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - UK Treasury Chief Secretary Simon Clarke told the Foreign Office and other departments last week to suspend "non-essential aid spending" for countries other than Ukraine until a new prime minister is elected over fears of exceeding the spending cap, Financial Times reported on Monday, citing officials.

Last year, the UK government cut the overseas aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP to facilitate the economy's post-pandemic recovery.

"We remain committed to spending 0.5 per cent of our gross national income on overseas aid and will return to 0.7 per cent when the fiscal situation allows," a government spokesperson said but admitted that ministers were "prioritising overseas aid funding such as providing humanitarian support to the people of Ukraine," as quoted in the report.

The government faced a barrage of criticism over this decision.

"The vast majority of UK development programmes will simply stop. This is truly awful. It will breach contracts, and goes against everything the UK claims to stand for," a British aid official was quoted as saying.

The head of government relations at charitable organization Oxfam, Sam Nadel, noted that the British government’s support for Ukrainian people "cannot come at the expense of responding to other emergencies around the world such as in east Africa and Yemen."

The total amount of economic and humanitarian assistance extended by the UK to Ukraine is exceeding 1.5 billion pounds ($1.8 billion dollars).