Theresa May has been urged to change the law on aid spending after it emerged that Britain cannot use its £13 billion aid budget to help its overseas territories devastated by Hurricane Irma.
MPs said it was “ludicrous” that rules set by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and enshrined in UK law prevent aid money going to Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Under OECD rules the island nations are classed as too wealthy to qualify for overseas aid, even though their economies have been shattered along with their buildings and infrastructure.
Sigh.
Still, no doubt there are Spice Girls in Ethiopia unfunded….
Can’t read the article – firewalled – but doesn’t sound right. Spend new money to help the islands. Reduce the foreign aid budget. What’s the actual problem?
Paywalled.
This one isn’t:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/13/uk-to-provide-further-25m-aid-to-hurricane-irma-hit-bvi-and-anguilla
I hear, also, that there’s an Indian Space Program that could maybe do with some extra money – perhaps it could be sent there instead?
And have they stopped those Columbian Cows from farting yet? Could send a bit more their way I suppose..
Change the law indeed. Aid should be paid by willing citizens, not by the govt that has coerced money out of the taxpayers.
I wouldn’t really call the current situation aid, it’s emergency relief. It’s not aid when the emergency services rescue you when your house burns down.
The underlying problem here is past parliaments enshrining these things in UK law. If the Govt does spend the foreign aid budget on disaster relief there it will quickly find itself in both UK and international courts.
I’d have thought the problem was counting them as “foreign” when they’re ours.
technically, there’s nothing to stop us spending the foreign aid budget on whatever we like – we’re just not allowed to count it towards the foreign aid target of 0.7% of GDP. Thus if we do spend part of our Foreign Aid budget on helping these places we won’t meet the 0.7% target.
To which the correct response is “So what?”
“and have they stopped those Columbian Cows from farting yet?”
Never realised Washington DC was noted for its dairy industry. More pork, would have thought. One lives & learns.
With that much bullshit, surely there are a few farts?
@ dearieme
Agreed – but I’m still waiting for the first email from the Disaster Emergency Committee days after the UK government sent help, so although I feel I should give something to help I do not yet know how to so.
In the UK charities help fill in the cracks in the welfare state through which people fall due to government incompetence – it seems this is a case where the UK government is helping to fill in the cracks in the DEC through which “British” Caribbean islands fall.
As others have pointed out, getting rid of the unaccountable, unelected supra national bureaucratic bodies of the EU is only the start. There are many more, like the OECD, stuffed full of Bureaucrats and policy wonks on tax free salaries that have somehow taken control of our government spending. Trading with the rest of the world without tariffs is one aspect of globalisation, being controlled by the post war US created instruments of global government – IMF, World Bank, OECD, UN, EU, WHO and the central bank cabal is something far worse. These are the gloabilist elite.
@Richard, September 14, 2017 at 10:11 am
Most are not ours [UK] anymore than Australia, Canada & New Zealand are ours. They’re independent nations.