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The House of Lords is scheduled to consider the following question for short debate on 13 January 2026:

Lord Bates (Conservative) to ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of any humanitarian impacts of actual and planned reductions in official development assistance.

Lord Bates served as a minister of state at the Department for International Development between 2016 and 2019.[1]

1. UK official development assistance: Definition, government policy, impact assessment and recent statistics

1.1 Definition

The government defines official development assistance (ODA) as:

[…] an internationally agreed measure of resource flows to developing countries and multilateral organisations, which are provided by official agencies (for example the UK government) or their executive agencies, where each transaction meets the following requirements:

  • it is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective
  • it is concessional, including grants and soft loans[2]

1.2 Government policy

The coalition government made a commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on ODA from 2013 and the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 later set the commitment as a statutory duty.[3] The UK spent 0.7% of GNI on ODA between 2013 and 2020 in line with the duty. However, in 2020 the previous Conservative government announced a temporary reduction in ODA spend to 0.5% of GNI from 2021, as permitted under the 2015 act. The government cited economic challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason for the reduction.[4]

The ODA:GNI ratio later temporarily increased to 0.51% and 0.58% in 2022 and 2023 respectively due to increased ODA spending within the UK associated with supporting refugees, known as ‘in-donor’ costs.[5]

In February 2025 the current Labour government announced it would reduce ODA spending further to the equivalent of 0.3% of GNI by 2027 to fund an increase in defence and security spending.[6] Anneliese Dodds resigned as minister for international development following the announcement.[7] The House of Commons Library noted this would bring UK ODA spending to its lowest level since 1999.[8]

In July 2025 the government confirmed it was “committed to restoring ODA spending at the level of 0.7% of GNI as soon as fiscal circumstances allow”.[9] It continued:

The principles for a return will be met when, on a sustainable basis, the government is not borrowing for day-to-day spending and underlying debt is falling. We will monitor future forecasts closely against these tests. The latest forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility indicates that the tests will not be met in this parliament. The government is working hard to create the conditions to enable the ODA fiscal tests to be met by prioritising growth—stronger growth will help in time to get underlying debt down.

1.3 Impact assessment

In December 2025 Lord Bates asked the government what assessment it had made of the humanitarian impact of actual and planned reductions in ODA.[10] Responding on 5 January 2026, Baroness Chapman of Darlington, minister of state for international development and Africa, referred to an equality impact assessment of ODA allocations for 2025 to 2026 first published by the FCDO in July 2025.[11]

The equality impact assessment included the following key conclusions:

  • Positive impacts on equalities have been protected across multilateral, humanitarian, financial transactions, international climate finance, and research and development spend. HM Treasury ringfencing for research and development and financial transactions budgets has maintained positive impacts on equalities in these areas. A ministerial decision to protect humanitarian spend and all forecasted spend in Sudan, Ukraine, and Gaza and Overseas Territories has also maintained positive equalities impacts in those areas.
  • Where there are reductions to planned bilateral spend, this will have negative impacts on equalities. This applies to reductions in spend on education (in Africa and through centrally managed programmes), health, social protection and the discontinuation or deprioritisation of some equalities-targeted programmes. However, the overall proportion of spend as a share of overall bilateral ODA remains the same on equalities focused programming, social sector spend and spend in LDCs [least developed countries], demonstrating that disproportionate impacts on equalities have been avoided.
  • A trend away from standalone targeted (principal marked) programming on equalities towards mainstreaming was observed in the Indo Pacific and in other pockets of other spending directorates. Across directorates, 10 of the 12 existing and pipeline programmes that have been reported as discontinued or deprioritised were equalities focused. Other programmes may have been discontinued/deprioritised which are not captured in this data set.
  • The assessment finds that the impacts on equalities are mixed but that overall the proposed 2025 to 2026 ODA allocations protect against disproportionate impacts on equalities.[12]

1.4 Recent statistics

The government published its latest statistical release on UK ODA spend, covering the 2024 calendar year, in September 2025.[13] The release included the following ‘key headlines’ about UK ODA in 2024:

  • UK ODA spend was £14,082mn, a decrease of £1,262mn (8.2%) on 2023.
  • The final ODA:GNI [gross national income] ratio was 50% (ie the UK spent 0.50% of its GNI on ODA), compared with 0.58% in 2023.
  • UK bilateral ODA spend was £11,273mn (80.1% of total UK ODA) while UK core funding to multilateral organisations was £2,809mn (19.9% of total UK ODA). This is the highest share of bilateral ODA spend and lowest share of multilateral ODA spend (of total UK ODA) to date.
  • £2,827mn (20.1% of UK ODA) was spent on support to refugees or asylum seekers in donor countries. This is a £1,446mn decrease compared to 2023 when its share of total ODA was 27.9%.
  • The largest amount of bilateral ODA was focused on the sectors ‘Refugees in donor countries’ (£2,827mn), ‘Humanitarian aid’ (£1,453mn) and ‘Unallocated/unspecified’ (£1,342mn).
  • Africa remained the largest recipient of UK region-specific bilateral ODA—accounting for 49.4% (up from 46.4% in 2023). In volume terms, ODA to Africa increased by £652mn (52.9%) to £1,885mn.
  • The top three recipients of UK country-specific bilateral ODA were Ukraine (£270mn), Afghanistan (£192mn) and Ethiopia (£182mn).
  • The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) spent £9,469mn (67.2% of total UK ODA) while non-FCDO ODA spend (by other government departments and other providers of UK ODA) was £4,613mn (32.8% of total UK ODA). This compares to shares of 61.9% (FCDO) and 38.1% (non-FCDO) in 2023.[14]

The release noted the government adheres to the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s clarifications for defining what in-donor refugee costs can be considered ODA in statistical reporting.[15] These recognise that “refugee protection is a legal obligation and that assistance to refugees may be considered a form of humanitarian assistance”.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has noted that continued ‘in-donor’ spending on asylum support costs at current levels could mean the share of ODA for overseas development could in practice be 0.24% of GNI by 2027.[16] The ICAI is conducting a review of the UK’s management of its ODA spending target that it expects to complete in March 2026.[17]

2. Selected comment on UK aid reductions

Humanitarian charities criticised the government’s February 2025 announcement that ODA would be reduced as a share of GNI in the years ahead. For example, David Miliband, a former Labour foreign secretary now president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee charity, said the decision was “a blow to Britain’s proud reputation as a global humanitarian and development leader”.[18] The UN children’s agency UNICEF was reported to have said the UK ODA reduction would “undoubtedly risk lives”.[19]

In addition, Romilly Greenhill, chief executive of the Bond network of humanitarian organisations, called the decision a “short-sighted and appalling move”.[20] She added: “Slashing the already diminished UK aid budget to fund an uplift in defence is a reckless decision that will have devastating consequences for millions of marginalised people worldwide”. The leaders of over 130 non-governmental organisations subsequently wrote an open letter to the government calling for it to reverse the decision, which they said would “destroy Labour’s legacy on international development”.[21]

Responding to the government’s decision in a letter published the following week, Sarah Champion, chair of the House of Commons International Development Committee, expressed her committee’s “deep concern” over the announcement.[22] She wrote:

Increased defence spending is undeniably needed and to be welcomed. However, our development spend protects not only the most vulnerable across the world but also the UK’s security, not least by helping to prevent conflict in the first place. Cutting ODA further to fund increased defence spending is a false economy that makes us less safe.

The commitment to allocate 0.7% of GNI to development assistance is enshrined in legislation. Although it has not been achieved since the reduction to 0.5% in 2021 by the previous government, this commitment has been a cornerstone of the UK’s international standing, supporting global efforts to address poverty, inequality and climate change. This brutal further cut to ODA risks undermining our soft power, as well as years of progress in areas such as healthcare, education, clean water and sustainable development. It will have dire consequences for millions of marginalised people across the world.[23]

Reacting to the FCDO’s subsequent equalities impact assessment, Bond argued the assessment “fell significantly short of the standards and approach required to minimise the harm caused by the ODA cuts”.[24]

3. Read more

3.1 Government and Parliament sources

3.2 Other sources

Image by Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (DFID) on Flickr.

References

  1. UK Parliament, ‘Lord Bates: Parliamentary career’, accessed 23 December 2025; and HM Government, ‘Lord Bates’, accessed 23 December 2025. Return to text
  2. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, ‘Statistics on international development: Final UK ODA spend 2024’, updated 26 September 2025, p 4. Return to text
  3. As above, p 5. Return to text
  4. HC Hansard, 26 November 2020, cols 1018–40. Return to text
  5. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, ‘Statistics on international development: Final UK ODA spend 2024’, updated 26 September 2025, p 5. Return to text
  6. HC Hansard, 25 February 2025, cols 631–57. See also: HL Hansard, 26 February 2025, cols 1756–69. Return to text
  7. Anneliese Dodds, ‘Personal X account’, 28 February 2025. Return to text
  8. House of Commons Library, ‘UK to reduce aid to 0.3% of gross national income from 2027’, 28 February 2025. Return to text
  9. House of Lords, ‘Written statement: 0.7% of GNI on ODA target 2024 (HLWS887)’, 22 July 2025. Return to text
  10. House of Lords, ‘Written question: Development aid (HL13079)’, 5 January 2026. Return to text
  11. As above. See also: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, ‘Equality impact assessment of official development assistance (ODA) programme allocations for 2025 to 2026’, updated 2 September 2025. Return to text
  12. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, ‘Equality impact assessment of official development assistance (ODA) programme allocations for 2025 to 2026’, updated 2 September 2025. Bold in original. Return to text
  13. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, ‘Statistics on international development: Final UK ODA spend 2024’, updated 26 September 2025. See also: ‘Statistics on international development’, updated 18 September 2025. Return to text
  14. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, ‘Statistics on international development: Final UK ODA spend 2024’, updated 26 September 2025, p 6. Bold in original. Return to text
  15. As above, p 36; and OECD, ‘In-donor refugee costs in official development assistance (ODA)’, 10 April 2024. Return to text
  16. Independent Commission on Aid Impact, ‘Watchdog warns UK refugee costs could absorb one-fifth of reduced aid budget’, 15 July 2025. Return to text
  17. Independent Commission on Aid Impact, ‘Management of the official development assistance spending target’, 15 July 2025. Return to text
  18. International Rescue Committee, ‘IRC responds to cuts to UK aid budget’, 25 February 2025. Return to text
  19. Catarina Demony, ‘Charities appalled by UK cut to aid budget to fund defence spending’, Reuters, 25 February 2025. Return to text
  20. Bond, ‘UK aid budget cut to fund defence increase: Bond reaction’, 25 February 2025. Return to text
  21. Bond, ‘Move to cut UK aid will “destroy Labour’s legacy on international development” say NGO leaders in letter to PM and Treasury’, 27 February 2025. Return to text
  22. House of Commons International Development Committee, ‘Cross-party committee expresses “deep concern” at international aid cuts in letter to prime minister’, 5 March 2025. Return to text
  23. House of Commons International Development Committee, ‘Letter from Sarah Champion to Sir Keir Starmer’, 5 March 2025. Return to text
  24. Bond, ‘Letter from Gideon Rabinowitz et al to Baroness Chapman’, 11 November 2025. See also: ‘More questions than answers for UK aid heading into 2026’, 3 December 2025. Return to text