London, 28 February 2025 - The share of the UK’s Gross National Income (GNI) spent on helping vulnerable people overseas is set to drop to the lowest ever as a result of planned aid cuts, Save the Children analysis has revealed.
London, 28 February 2025 - The share of the UK’s Gross National Income (GNI) spent on helping vulnerable people overseas is set to drop to the lowest ever as a result of planned aid cuts, Save the Children analysis has revealed.
When expenditure in the UK is deducted, new figures reveal in 2027 the funds for work around the world are likely to plummet to the smallest share of GNI since records began in 1979, at just 0.22%.
The proportion of the aid budget spent in the UK has ballooned in recent years, eating into funds available for supporting children and families in the toughest places across the globe.
Dan Paskins, Executive Director for Policy and Campaigns at Save the Children UK said:
“Our analysis could not be more stark. This Government is on course to preside over the lowest ever share of UK GNI going to help people overseas. These cuts are a cruel and self-defeating failure of both solidarity and diplomacy.
“Just a few months ago, the Prime Minister committed at the UN to restoring Britain's reputation on international development. It is increasingly clear that this week’s announcement leaves that promise in tatters.
“The international partnerships that underpin our safety will suffer, as will millions of families in the world’s most dangerous places. It’s vital these cuts are reversed.”
The majority of the aid spent in the UK goes on hosting refugees, and reached more than £4 billion in 2023.
Campaigners and politicians, including Foreign Secretary David Lammy when in opposition1, have argued that it is not right for UK aid money to be spent at home at anything like the current scale.
Costs of hosting refugees in the UK were first drawn from the aid budget in 2009, after the government changed guidance to allow it.
Dan Paskins added:
“The Government is absolutely right to be supporting refugees here in the UK, but those costs do not belong in the aid budget – a position which is consistent with the OECD Development Assistance Committee rules and how most people will feel aid should be spent. We should not fund our response to one crisis at the expense of others. Foreign Secretary David Lammy used to agree.”
On Tuesday, the UK Government announced plans to cut the aid budget from 0.5% of GNI to 0.3% by 2027, in order to fund defence spending.
While little detail has been given on where the cuts will fall, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that this could mean £6 billion less in aid spending.
In 2023 an assessment found that as a result of previous rounds of aid cuts thousands of women in Africa would die in pregnancy and childbirth and half a million women and children in Yemen would not receive healthcare.
UK Aid is helping Save the Children reach children and families across the world, including in climate and conflict-hit Somalia by helping to set up safe houses to protect women and children fleeing violence; in DRC by helping 60,000 children get an education, many of them girls who have never been to school; and in Ukraine where three years of full-scale war have shattered children’s lives, by helping provide food, medical care, and emergency shelter through local partners.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- Save the Children deducted the amount spent in the UK – known as ‘in-donor expenditure’ and made up of refugee hosting and administration costs – from historic aid budgets, and compared the amounts that remained for spending overseas.
- The Government has said it intends to reduce refugee hosting costs, without saying how they will achieve this or by how much. For the 2027 projection, the aid agency estimated a 40% drop in refugee hosting costs from an estimated £3 billion in 2024, in line with the average cut required across the aid budget as a whole.
- In the absence of any stated Government intention to reduce administration costs and taking into account that these rose in the most recently published figures in 2023, Save the Children projected stable spending on administration from 2023 to 2027. This would amount to a real terms cut, due to inflation.
- David Lammy: The Future of For–Leading – Apple Podcasts– from 28.00; David Lammy MP: Britain Reconnected - YouTube – from 26:30.
Save the Children has spokespeople available for interview. Please contact [email protected] / 0207 012 6841 / out of hours +44(0)7831 650409.