Migrants come ashore in Dover (Image: Gareth Fuller/PA)
Almost a third of the £11.4billion foreign aid budget is spent supporting refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, an official watchdog has warned, writes Martyn Brown.
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact said such costs have risen to around £3.5billion.
The findings will heap pressure on the government to tackle migrant small boats crossing the Channel and bear down on the backlog in asylum claims.
It also means the UK’s response to floods in Pakistan and drought in Somalia has been delayed.
Under international aid rules, the first-year costs of supporting refugees in a donor country can qualify as official development assistance.
The ICAI said while the rule has always been considered controversial, it has become a big problem in recent years.
Large-scale visa schemes for refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan as well as the upsurge in Channel crossings made the bill soar last year.
With the overseas aid budget limited to 0.5 percent of GDP, the ICAI said the UK’s ability to respond to international humanitarian emergencies has been “sharply curtailed”.
It warns the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has been forced to pause “non-essential” spending. And it added: “This was seen in the limited UK response both to devastating floods in Pakistan in August 2022, and to the worsening drought in the Horn of Africa, which is expected to lead to widespread famine in 2023.”
The ICAI said the shift in resources away from emergency response to supporting refugees in the UK represented a “significant loss” in the efficiency of aid spending.
Between October 2022 and March this year, the number of hotels used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers and refugees almost doubled from around 200 to 386. The ICAI said it had heard “a lot of anecdotal” evidence of safeguarding lapses in asylum hotels. , particularly for women and girls, who face significant risks of harassment and violence.
Chairman of the Commons international development committee, Sarah Champion, said: “Our valuable aid budget is being squandered as a result of Home Office failure to get on top of asylum application backlogs.
“Spending should promote and target the economic development and welfare of developing countries.”
