THE UK Government has been condemned over plans to count financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of the UK's slashed aid budget.
Reports have suggested that Chancellor Rishi Sunak intends to include the UK's share of a multi-billion-pound global fund provided by the IMF as part of the UK's aid budget.
The UK is set to receive around £20 billion as its share of a $650bn fund.
Instead of increasing the aid budget as a result of the UK's share, the Tories will instead count it as part of its commitments -a move the SNP say is taking yet more development spending away from the UK's own aid programmes.
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It follows on from the Tories' overseas aid budget cut from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income.
Commenting, the SNP's international development spokesperson Chris Law MP said: "This latest move to siphon off IMF financial assistance as part of the UK's aid spending is callous to the core.
"The Tory government is hell-bent on abandoning its responsibilities to the world's most vulnerable and poorest.
"The UK's share of the IMF's global fund - totalling around £20bn - should have led to the UK increasing its already eroded aid budget.
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"Instead, the Chancellor intends to protect the Treasury's coffers rather than protecting those in desperate need.
"We are in the middle of a global pandemic that is disproportionately impacting on the world's most vulnerable. No one is safe from the pandemic until everyone is safe.
"The Chancellor must ditch plans to count IMF support as part of the UK's aid commitments, and instead commit to increasing the UK's aid budget from the shamefully low 0.5% level it is at now."
A UK Government spokesperson said: “The UK is and will remain a world leader in international development. This year we provided over £10bn towards poverty reduction, climate change and global health security – a greater proportion of our national income than the majority of the G7.
“As voted on in the House of Commons, we will return to the 0.7% target when the fiscal situation allows.”
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