Boris Johnson has dodged a potential House of Commons defeat on international aid cuts after Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle rejected calls for a vote in parliament.
However, the Speaker said he expected the government to allow MPs to have an “effective” vote on the cut from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of GDP at a later date – warning that he was ready to clear the way for a debate as early as tomorrow.
Leader of the Tory rebels Andrew Mitchell told the Commons that Mr Johnson would have lost a vote tonight by between nine and 20 votes.
The former international development secretary accused the government frontbench of “riding roughshod over parliament” and treating the Commons with “disrespect”.
“In the week of the British chairmanship of the G7, the government’s failure to address this issue will indisputably mean that hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths will result,” said Mr Mitchell. “It is already attracting criticism from all round the other members of the G7.”
