Brexit news – live: EU may not turn up to trade talks as foreign aid cut to stay for ‘foreseeable future’

The UK government’s controversial £4bn-a-year cut to overseas aid will not be restored in “the foreseeable future”, the foreign secretary has admitted.

Dominic Raab told MPs that the cut – from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of national income – would not be reversed soon, despite being described as “temporary”.

Our deputy political editor, Rob Merrick, has the full story below:

Efforts to avert a no-deal Brexit faced another obstacle today as Downing Street admitted it did not know if EU negotiator Michel Barnier would turn up for face-to-face talks due to resume tomorrow.

Mr Barnier was expected in London this evening ahead of talks with UK chief negotiator David Frost on Friday, but reports suggested he was pulling out of the talks unless there is a major shift in the UK’s negotiating stance.

Our political editor, Andrew Woodcock, has the full story below:

Downing Street has insisted that the government remains committed to the Tory manifesto commitments to not raise income tax, VAT or National Insurance, despite breaking its funding pledge on foreign aid this week.

“You have seen the manifesto,” Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said, when asked about future tax plans.

“The chancellor – as any chancellor rightly does – does not speculate on future tax policy. But we obviously remain committed to the manifesto pledge.”

Former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell has said the Conservative Party “does not need to break” its 0.7 per cent spending commitment on foreign aid, adding that the proposal will “drive a horse and cart” through aid plans.

The Tory MP told the Commons: “It will withdraw access to family planning and contraception for more than seven million women, with all the misery that that will entail, 100,000 children will die from preventable diseases, two million – mainly children – will suffer much more steeply as a result of these changes from malnutrition and starvation.”

Although Mr Mitchell welcomed commitments to improve girls’ education around the world, he warned targets were at-risk of not being met.

“On existing plans, probably a million girls will not be able to go to school,” he said.

“I hope he will bear in mind these reductions make little difference to us in the United Kingdom but they make a massive difference to them.”

In response, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said: “With respect I don’t think it’s possible to say with the precision he did about the implications because we’re not going to take a salami-slicing approach of just saying we’ll cut a third from all areas of ODA [official development assistance].

“We’re going to take a strategic approach, we’ll safeguard those areas that we regard as an absolute priority – including many of the things he mentioned, particularly on international public health alongside Covid, climate change and girls’ education.”

Boris Johnson has appointed Dan Rosenfield, a former Treasury official who works for advisory firm Hakluyt, as his chief of staff from 7 December.

As the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg notes, Mr Rosenfield previously worked for former chancellors George Osborne and Alistair Darling.

The new coronavirus tiered restrictions are notably tougher than the ones put forward in October, with almost every area in the country in either Tier 2 or Tier 3.

The stricter rules have also sparked an angry backlash from some Tory MPs who believe the measures are too stringent following this month’s national lockdown.

Our political editor, Andrew Woodcock, has the full story below:

Senior Tory MP Sir Graham Brady has said he will vote against the new tiered coronavirus restrictions which are set to go before the Commons next week.

Sir Graham, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs, told BBC Radio 4’s World At One that he could not support the “authoritarian” measures.

“I have severe reservations on so many different levels,” he said.

“I do think that the policies have been far too authoritarian. I think they have interfered in people’s private and personal lives in a way which is unacceptable.”

The graph below from Statista shows how well the UK has done with meeting the 0.7 per cent of GNI target for foreign aid spending set by the UN General Assembly in 1970.

New legislation will be needed to reduce the UK’s 0.7 per cent foreign aid target, giving MPs an opportunity to vote on the proposal, Dominic Raab has confirmed.

The foreign secretary told the Commons: “The relevant legislation, the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015, envisages circumstances in which the 0.7 per cent target may not be met in particular in the context of economic pressures.

“The Act provides for accountability to parliament in that event and I will of course report to the House in the proper way.

“Equally given the requirements of the Act and the fact that we can’t at this moment predict with certainty when the current financial circumstances will have sufficiently improved, and our need to plan accordingly, we will need to bring forward legislation in due course.”

Mr Raab added that the proposed Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy would be a chance to re-evaluate the UK’s aid priorities.

“With that review, we are setting the long-term strategic aims of our international work based on our values and grounded in the British national interests,” he said.

The minister also said his priorities for aid spending would be tackling climate change and Covid-19, girls education, conflict resolution and expanding in-house management of aid delivery “in order to increase the impact that our policy interventions have on the ground”.

Two Tory MPs so far have said they will not vote in favour of the government’s new tiered coronavirus restrictions: