Anger as Boris Johnson announces plan to merge international aid department into foreign office

Campaigners and former international development secretaries line up to criticise plans for a new "super" department

The government has been accused of putting politics ahead of the needs of the world's poorest by merging the department responsible for overseas aid into the foreign office.

Boris Johnson told MPs he intends to end the "artificial and outdated" distinction between diplomacy and overseas development by scrapping the department for international development (DfID) and handing control of the aid budget to the foreign office.

Mr Johnson announced the creation of the new foreign, commonwealth and development office, headed up by foreign secretary Dominic Raab, to "unite our aid with our diplomacy".

He hinted at cuts to aid budgets, saying Mr Raab "will be empowered to decide which countries receive – or cease to receive – British aid" and questioned why countries like Zambia and Tanzania received more funding that Ukraine and the Western Balkans, which are strategically important to the UK.

Work will begin immediately on the new department, which is expected to be established by September.

Campaigners for the world’s poor have long feared that Mr Johnson, a former foreign secretary, would axe the department. The majority of DfID ministers were given parallel roles at the foreign office during the cabinet reshuffle earlier this year – raising fresh questions over its future.

Mr Johnson told the Commons: "We must now strengthen our position in an intensely competitive world by making sensible changes, and so I have decided to merge DfID with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to create a new department, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

"This will unite our aid with our diplomacy and bring together our international effort."

He said overseas aid had been treated for too long like a "cashpoint in the sky" and pledged that the new Whitehall "super-department" would improve the UK's international mission.

The move triggered a furious backlash from campaigners and politicians, with a string of former international development secretaries lining up to criticise the move.

Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said: “It is scarcely believable that at a time when decades of progress are under threat from Covid, the prime minister has decided to scrap DfID, a world leader in the fight against poverty.

"With half a billion people at risk of being pushed into poverty the UK should be stepping up to protect lives and but is instead choosing to step back.

“This decision puts politics above the needs of the poorest people and will mean more people around the world will die unnecessarily from hunger and disease.”

Stephanie Draper, chief executive of Bond, which represents international development organisations, said the move put the response to coronavirus pandemic at risk.

"Scrapping DfID now puts the international response to Covid-19 in jeopardy and, at a time when we need global co-operation, risks a resurgence of the disease both abroad and here in the UK," she said.

Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee, said: “At a time when the future for so many people in developing nations has never looked worse, with existing challenges of violence, famine and disease compounded with the devastating effects of coronavirus, the PMs timing couldn’t be worse.

"The future for the UK’s world-leading government humanitarian work is now in jeopardy."

Justine Greening, a former Tory international development secretary, told The Independent: “Government should be totally focused on steering our country through the huge challenges we face right now - the health impact of COVID, getting our kids back into school and preventing the worst unemployment crisis in a generation that will hit young people and the lowest paid the hardest.

"People will find it hard to see why it’s a priority to have a departmental reorganisation when ministers are so clearly already stretched.”

Andrew Mitchell, another Conservative who held the post between 2010 and 2012, said: "Abolishing DfID would be a quite extraordinary mistake.

"First it would destroy one of the most affective and respected engines of international development anywhere in the world. Second many of the senior figures who are key to Britain’s role as a development superpower will likely leave and go elsewhere in the international system - at a stroke destroying a key aspect of Global Britain.

"Third it is completely unnecessary as the prime minister exercises full control over DfID's strategy and priorities through the National Security Council."

Rory Stewart, both a former international development secretary and foreign office minister, said he would have been "strongly" arguing against the shake-up if he was still in office.

He added: "I don't think it is the smart option. There are many other things we need to be concentrating on at the moment.

"It will lead to a lot of disruption, a lot of uncertainty at a time when the Foreign Office has an enormous amount to be focused on."

Douglas Alexander, who served as international development secretary under Gordon Brown, said getting rid of DfID would be "an act of national self-harm".

The former MP, who was in post between 2007 and 10, said: "Abolishing DfID would be an act of national self-harm that would hurt both the UK's global standing and our efforts to assist the world's poorest people amidst a global pandemic."

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the announcement was "a distraction" from how poorly the government was handling the coronavirus pandemic.

He said: "Abolishing Dfid diminishes Britain's place in the world. There's no rationale for making this statement today.

"The prime minister should stop these distractions and get on with the job of tackling the health and economic crisis we currently face."

Wendy Chamberlain, Liberal Democrat international development spokesperson, said: “Abolishing the Department for International Development reveals the extent of the prime minister’s determination to see the UK turn its back on the world.”

International Development Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan will remain in post until the merger is complete. Downing Street sources also indicated that there would be no compulsory redundancies.

The target of spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on development will remain, it has been confirmed.