Boris Johnson will not comply with the Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s demand for the cut in UK overseas aid spending to be put to a vote in the House of Commons, Downing Street has said.
Mr Johnson escaped a likely defeat at the hands of Tory rebels in the Commons on Monday evening, after an attempt to force a vote was ruled out of order for technical reasons.
But in an unusually brutal slapdown for the PM, Sir Lindsay accused Mr Johnson of failing to show the Commons “the due respect which it deserves” and demanded an urgent and legally-binding vote on the cuts from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of gross national income (GNI).
Today, the prime minister’s official spokeperson responded: “There are currently no plans to bring forward a vote.”
Former PM Theresa May is expected to lead a list of Tory grandees savaging the cut in a three-hour emergency debate in the House of Commons, in a humiliating spectacle for Mr Johnson just days before he chairs the G7 meeting of international leaders in Cornwall.
Ms May and others – including former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell and Commons defence committee chair Tobias Ellwood – will argue that the cuts threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in poor countries and damage the UK’s “soft power” overseas.
But no vote is expected at the end of today’s debate, as Tory rebels believe that it would be pointless to force a purely symbolic division which would not be binding on the government and is likely to be boycotted by most Conservatives, including Mr Johnson himself.
The commitment to meet the United Nations target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNI on overseas development assistance on was enshrined in law by David Cameron and confirmed by Mr Johnson in the Conservative manifesto in 2019.
But the PM’s spokesperson said that the law did not require ministers to obtain MPs’ approval for a temporary reduction.
“We are clear that the government’s decision to temporarily reduce the aid budget to 0.5 per cent of GNI is compatible with the International Development Act, which explicitly envisages there may be circumstances where the 0.7 target is not met,” said the spokesman.
Despite the cut, the UK is expected to spend more than £10bn this year on improving global health, fighting poverty and tackling climate change, he said.
