British Public to Face Government Service Cuts of £3 Billion per Year — While Foreign Aid Remains at Nearly Three Times that Level
The British public have been told to prepare for public service cutbacks of £3 billion per year for the next four years — while the foreign aid budget remains at £8 billion per year and is set to increase exponentially.
According to a pre-budget report issued by the Labour government, some £12 billion will be cut from public spending over four years, meaning a cut of approximately £3 billion each year.
The cuts were announced by Gordon Brown and explained as “efficiency savings” in an attempt to show how the Labour Party intends to tackle Britain’s out-of-control budget deficit.
In a speech in central London, Mr Brown said ministers have identified £3 billion in “additional efficiency savings” since the Budget in April. Of that, £1.3 billion will be achieved by streamlining central government. This means that a large number of Government programmes will be abandoned.
The cuts in domestic spending, which will see reduced services to the British taxpaying public, are in marked contrast to the foreign aid budget which continues to climb year on year.
According to official Department for International Development (DFID) figures, the expenditure on foreign aid for the last two years has been just under £20 billion — a significant figure when compared to the latest cuts in domestic services proposed by Mr Brown.
The latest DFID report for 2009 says that the Government’s foreign aid budget will “be higher than the 0.56% of national income European target” by 2010/11. This is an average annual increase of 11 percent.
“We will, by next year, have nearly trebled our bilateral and multilateral aid to Africa since 2004,” the report states.
The Conservatives have promised to increase the foreign aid budget even further if they are elected to power at the next general election. A special report from the Tory party on the topic said that this money would be “ring fenced” and untouchable no matter what else happens.
In his pre-Budget report speech on Wednesday, Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to announce that Government borrowing for the year will be in excess of £175 billion.
Amongst cuts expected to be announced are upgrades to the National Health Services IT systems.
* Meanwhile, the DFID announced on 27 November that the British taxpayers had just paid over £50 million “to help over 60 of the world’s poorest countries access the latest climate research” data, which would “help them understand how best to tackle climate change in the years following December’s Copenhagen negotiations.”
The Climate and Development Knowledge Network, which will receive the money, will “link developing countries with leading climate experts, allowing them to commission and share knowledge on how best to tackle the potentially devastating effects of climate change.”
* If that was not enough, on 25 November, the DFID gave £6.5 billion to UNICEF to finance a programme to “improve women’s life chances and tackle violence against women in South Asia.” The money will “establish a new South Asia gender equality fund which will bring together the best policy, research and evidence in South Asia to tackle the root causes of gender inequality across the region.”
The British National Party says that all foreign aid must be halted. There are more than enough pressing issues at home which have to be addressed without the already bankrupt British state playing Father Christmas across the world.
