Johnson faces binding UK vote on foreign aid cuts

Bloomberg

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces a rebellion in Parliament from his own Conservatives to force his government to abandon plans to slash its foreign aid budget by about $5.6 billion.
Though he enjoys a significant majority in the House of Commons, there are some Tory members of Parliament who believe they have the numbers to defeat Johnson and overturn his decision to cut international aid to 0.5% of gross national income, down from 0.7%.
The government’s rationale is that the pandemic required extraordinary spending measures and that the books must be balanced, making the aid cut a painful but necessary step. Opponents say the cut directly affects vulnerable women and children, something that Johnson has stated is a priority of his Group of Seven presidency this year.
“Every MP in the House of Commons stood on a very clear promise to stand by 0.7%,” rebel leader and Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell said.
“What is being proposed may not return Britain to that commitment for decades to come,” Mitchell said. “I am urging my colleagues to keep their promise and prevent hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths by voting against” the motion.
Anticipating a win by the rebels, the Treasury sought to attach conditions before the 0.7% promise is honored again. It would only happen when the independent Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal forecast says that — “on a sustainable basis” — the U.K. is “not borrowing to finance day-to-day spending and underlying debt is falling,” the Treasury said in an e-mailed statement Monday.
On Monday evening Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg warned the rebels they risk not keeping the public finances under “reasonable control.”
The Treasury argues that last year the U.K. borrowed nearly 300 billion pounds, equivalent to 14.3% of its gross domestic product and the highest since World War II. Meanwhile debt as a percentage of GDP has reached nearly 100%, the highest since 1962.