Part of the money being spent on overseas aid should be ploughed into adult social care in the UK to help the elderly, vulnerable and disabled, an MP has said.
Shipley MP Philip Davies said “charity should begin at home” and urged Prime Minister Theresa May during Commons question time to plug the £2.5 billion annual shortfall from the doubling of money handed out.
He said: “Back in 2010 the overseas aid budget was about £7 billion a year, by 2020 it would have more than doubled to over £15 billion a year, the shortfall in social care funding by 2020 is estimated at £2.5 billion a year.
“The government’s priority should be to look after the elderly, vulnerable and disabled people in our own country before we hand money over to other countries. Will the Prime Minister take some of that money, a small amount of that increase from the overseas aid budget and spend it on elderly, vulnerable and disabled people in our own country. Surely charity begins at home.”
In 2015 Parliament the International Development Bill was passed which committed the UK to spending 0.7 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on overseas aid.
Mrs May said: “It is right the government is taking steps in relation to the pressures on social care here in the United Kingdom but I think it is also important that we do take in to consideration those who are in difference circumstances across the world.”
Mrs May said the 0.7 per cent of GDP was something to be “proud of”.
She added: “We look after old people here in the UK, we also take that moral responsibility for people around the world seriously as well.”