‘Value for money for the taxpayer’ no longer priority, says MPs Select Committee on Overseas Aid
Meanwhile, £2.83bn was spent on the costs of migrants in the UK last year (2024)
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2025
And when will we stop giving international aid to the EU? £383 million given last year (2024)
Yesterday the Commons Select Committee for International Development published its report on the UK’s approach to ‘Value for Money’ (VfM) in Official Development Assistance (international aid). The report tells the FCDO, the main provider of international aid, to stop using value for the UK taxpayer as its priority. Instead, the Committee of MPs, chaired by Sarah Champion MP, says the focus should be on ‘reducing global poverty’.
Credit: Sarah Champion MP 'X' (Twitter) account 2025
Meanwhile, the total cost of migrants in the UK was £2.8 billion last year (£2.827 bn). The official definition of overseas aid allows in-country costs like these to be counted towards the total of the UK’s international aid, although this is certainly not considered as such by the public. Countries such as Australia do not count the costs of housing and caring for migrants in Australia as part of their international aid budget, making them more generous internationally than they appear in the international tables.
Additionally, figures released last month by HM Treasury show the UK continues to give part of its international aid budget to the EU, despite having left the bloc four years ago. Facts4EU’s calculations show that the UK transferred £383 million to branches of the EU for aid in 2024.
1. The overall picture – How much is the UK spending on ‘international aid’ and how much on migrants?
Any analysis of international aid Facts4EU has ever conducted always runs into the same difficulties when attempting to provide accurate information for readers. The principal one is in trying to include all the monies the UK is spending in this area. Below is what we believe to be a conservative totalling of the budget spent on ‘international aid’, including the proportion spent within the UK itself.
The UK’s overall ‘international aid’ 2024, showing the share for migrants in the UK
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2025 - click to enlarge
[Source(s) : FCDO]
As can be seen above, last year the UK spent over £2.8 billion on migrant costs in the UK.
Above we referred to the difficulties in analysing any data on international aid. As an example, in the latest figures a total of 18 government departments had responsibility for delivering this aid last year. A further nine organisations including the Scottish and Welsh governments and the BBC World Service are counted separately.
2. “Focus on ‘reducing global poverty’, not on delivering value for the taxpayer,” Select Committee tells FCDO
Overall, the Committee says the UK is still considered a global leader in delivering value for money for the many billions of pounds the UK taxpayer has spent on international aid.
Its principal message, however, is the focus of the FCDO in spending all this cash is wrong. Instead of delivering value for money to the British taxpayer, the FCDO should focus on reducing global poverty.
Sarah Champion MP, Chair of the International Development Committee, said:
“Ensuring aid delivers genuine value for money has never been more important. As major donors tighten their belts, we have to ensure that every penny we spend goes to the people most in need.
“The former Department for International Development was rightly seen as a world leader in Value for Money; the FCDO is broadly hanging on to that reputation. But it must make some urgent improvements.”
“Reducing poverty must be the central aim of the development budget. While accountability to the taxpayer is an important consideration, the FCDO’s current definition of VfM risks diverting focus away from improving the lives of the most vulnerable – the very reason the aid budget exists at all.”
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3. The UK taxpayer is still giving large amounts to the EU
Despite leaving the EU four years ago, the UK continues to give money to the EU as part of its international aid expenditure.
When looking at the Treasury’s report on “Breakdown of UK ODA: by Government Department and Other Contributors and Delivery Channel”, the total contribution to the EU for 2024 is shown as being £282 million. This, however, does not include the £101 million which the UK paid to the EU Commission’s off-budget ‘European Development Fund’. The correct total is shown in our headline above: £383 million.
Regular readers will know that the EU is not fit for purpose when it comes to distributing international aid. We showed this dramatically in our recent report, which details why the EU’s own Court of Auditors gave the Commission an ‘Adverse Opinion’ for the sixth year running. The Court found the errors were once again ‘material and pervasive’.
The other key thing to remember is that all monies the UK gave - and are still giving - to the EU were (and are) badged by the Commission as “Aid from the EU” on the plaques they erect on every project in poorer countries. For decades the people of these countries have had no idea that a significant proportion of the generosity they were receiving came from the British taxpayer, being the second-largest funder of the EU’s largesse.
Observations
It may come as news to many readers that the Foreign Office has had ‘delivering value for money to the taxpayer’ as its priority. Certainly it has been the Facts4EU team’s impression, built up over the last 10 years, that the FCDO is the government department most removed from any thoughts about the interests of the British public.
That said, anyone can claim something is their priority… It doesn’t mean a thing unless it is carried through in policies and actions.
At a time when we are all facing a budget next month in which Rachel Reeves will impose yet more tax rises to add to the cost of living crisis being felt by so many people, it might be thought that the core message of this report is ill-timed. Ensuring that every pound spent on foreign aid delivers maximum value for the taxpayer is, we would have thought, exactly what people want to hear.
Now we find that the members of this House of Commons Select Committee consider we have got this all wrong. Instead of worrying how much the energy bill is going to be when it lands on our doormats (or inboxes) this winter, it seems we should all be much more concerned about reducing global poverty.
On a more positive note there is one aspect of this report with which we wholeheartedly concur. Around a third of the overseas aid is sent to multinational organisations such as the UN’s various agencies, the Global Vaccines Alliance, the Green Climate Fund, the WHO, the African Development Fund, and others. The MPs criticise the FCDO for a lack of transparency in their monitoring of how these billions are actually being spent.
In this one matter we are at one with the MPs. To us, channelling monies through supranational agencies over which we have no control has never seemed wise, particularly after reading reports about the management of these bodies. This has never been clearer than when looking at the vast amounts of money the British people sent to the EU each year. We would simply suggest that if readers have not already done so, they might wish to read the latest report we published on this. Our source was none other than the EU Commission's own Court of Auditors.
Talking of money….
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[ Sources: House of Commons Select Committee on International Development ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Wed 29 Oct 2025
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