Thanks to your support, the TaxPayers’ Alliance has secured big policy wins in our relatively short history.

And yesterday, we chalked up yet another.

For over a decade, we have campaigned to cut and reform Britain’s foreign aid spending. It is too often a quick route to taxpayers’ money being wasted abroad. Too many aid programmes go beyond basic humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations, becoming giant NGO programmes that are rife with waste and corruption.

Yesterday, the prime minister announced that he was merging the Department for International Development (DfID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). 

In doing so, he was finally acknowledging what we have said all along - that serious changes were needed, despite the Westminster consensus that foreign aid was untouchable. That we need to have British taxpayers’ interests at heart when we spend money overseas.

Here’s how we did it:

• When we launched a 2010 manifesto, we urged all political parties to ditch the terrible 0.7 per cent foreign aid target. 

• Prior to that, our major report in 2009 showed that 14p in every pound spent on aid through DfID was lost to non-frontline costs.

• In 2014, we argued that foreign aid spending was doing nothing to advance freedom around the world. 

• A year later, we published the landmark Spending Plan, which recommended that DfID be scrapped with many of its responsibilities transferred to the FCO.

• Only last month, in May 2020, we submitted evidence to an International Development Committee report saying that the UK was alone in having an independent foreign aid department. 

Finally, after years of relentless campaigning, our policy has been adopted - with the prime minister himself echoing our message on delivering value for taxpayers when making his announcement. 

Together with you, our supporters, we change the country.

But there’s still more to do. A cosy Westminster consensus exists that the legally binding 0.7 per cent spending target is sacrosanct, despite our polling of ordinary taxpayers showing the vast majority would like nothing better than to see the cash spent elsewhere.

So we can’t rest easy. We have to make the case for further reforms to the aid budget. 

Last year, in a heavy-hitting report launched by now-Home Secretary Rt Hon Priti Patel MP, we made a number of detailed recommendations for improving how money was being spent. One of those - ensuring there was one secretary of state made clearly responsible for signing off spending - was also announced by Boris yesterday.

Back then, the official government response (and from their allies in the aid lobby) was dismissive. Yesterday, it became government policy. 

We still have work to do. Everything from the structure of aid delivery to the 0.7 per cent target itself must be on the table.

We’ve shown that we can win - but only with your help.

If you’ve recently donated to support our work, thank you. If you haven’t yet donated in 2020, please consider doing so today.

Very best wishes,
John

John O'Connell, Chief Executive
TaxPayers' Alliance, 55 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QL
Tel. 020 7998 1450
www.taxpayersalliance.com