A new report by the international aid spending watchdog has revealed that the Home Office spent one-third of the UK’s international aid budget on domestic asylum costs, leading to severe cuts to genuine international aid programmes.
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) found that the permission given by the government to the Home Office to spend an “unlimited proportion” of the international aid budget was responsible for the “limited UK response” to the Pakistan floods in 2022 and developing famine in the Horn of Africa.
Meanwhile, as the BBC recently reported, private firms and hotels here in the UK are making considerable profits from housing asylum seekers stuck waiting in the growing asylum backlog. Essentially, the “international” aid budget is being diverted by the Home Office into the pockets of the UK private sector.