Bond welcomes Minister McNeill’s commitment to ambitious development agenda at International Development Committee session
On Tuesday 15th September, the UK Minister for Development and Africa, Kirsty McNeill MP, gave evidence to the cross-party International Development Committee on her new role and plans for the FCDO’s international development agenda. The session, in which MPs questioned the Minister on issues from UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the ongoing FCDO restructure, also followed a speech by Kirsty McNeill at the New Economics Foundation, yesterday.
In the speech, Minister McNeill affirmed her commitment to a high-quality, effective UK aid budget, and to returning the UK aid budget to 0.7% of GNI when fiscal circumstances allow. This follows Starmer’s Labour government carrying out the deepest ever cut to the UK aid budget, which will fall to just 0.3% of GNI by 2027/2028.
Minister McNeill also recognised that UK aid alone cannot solve complex global challenges, and expressed her commitment to working with other departments to strengthen a whole of government agenda on development and to reforming the international system so it more effectively tackles problems that affect our shared interests, at home and abroad.
In light of this, she also set out her planned focus on ‘five securities’ – health, climate, food, human and economic security – which will underpin the UK’s international development agenda, and emphasised the importance of pressing for reform of multilateral institutions.
In response to the Minister’s comments at the IDC session and in her NEF speech, Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the UK network for NGOs, said:
“We warmly welcome Kirsty McNeill’s clear emphasis on the need for global co-operation to tackle shared challenges, and her commitment to our shared humanity and solidarity as the basis of the UK’s international development approach. Though marginalised communities around the world always bear the brunt of crises, people both in the UK and globally are being failed by the same unfair global economic system. The UK government has the chance to tackle these underlying drivers of inequality, injustice and poverty, and instil long term change.
Alongside the prime minister’s emphasis on reshaping our economic and political systems, and bringing greater power at local level to address the needs of ordinary people, Minister McNeill’s desire to rewrite the script on the UK’s development approach shows genuine opportunity to build equitable partnerships with local civil society.
Minister McNeill and the foreign secretary must also use the UK’s upcoming G20 presidency to champion much-needed reforms to the global financial system, to unlock finance to support countries to invest in their own public services, increase resilience to the impacts of climate crisis, and lift communities out of poverty. We welcome their resolve to working together with allies to ensure that the UK’s G20 and G7 presidencies help make the global system work effectively for all.
While we recognise the Minister’s conviction of the importance of good quality UK aid, we urge the chancellor and prime minister to rule out further cuts to the UK aid budget in the Autumn Budget, and set out a timeline for a gradual return to 0.7% of GNI. With a drastically reduced UK aid budget, the FCDO must make every penny count in contributing to global poverty reduction and humanitarian assistance: particularly in fragile and conflict-affected states, which are bearing the brunt of global aid cuts.”
Notes to Editors:
- Final SIDS for 2025, published last week by the FCDO, reveal that that funding for middle- and upper-middle income countries increased, while least-developed and low-income countries saw a decrease in UK aid in 2025. Read Bond’s reaction and analysis here.
- New analysis from Bond, first published in the Financial Times, has found that an additional ‘stealth cut’ of around c£700m was made to the UK aid budget in 2025, beyond the planned £500m reduction set out in the 2025 Spending Review. More information on the UK ODA budget ‘stealth cut’ in 2025 is available here.
- Given comments made at the IDC on funding cuts to ICAI, the independent body that scrutinises the UK government’s spending of ODA, read Bond’s blog on the importance of ICAI here.
- Bond unites and supports a diverse network of over 350 civil society organisations from across the UK, and allies to help eradicate global poverty, inequality and injustice.
- For more information or interviews, please contact Emily Loynes at [email protected] or 07909947850
