UK minister blasts Tories for bankrolling big money

A lawmaker of the UK’s main opposition Labour Party has accused the ruling Conservatives of hijacking Britain’s multi-billion aid budget by using it to bankroll big businesses, military programs and anti-immigration policies.

The Labour’s Shadow International Development Secretary, Diane Abbott, is set to heavily criticize the government’s new aid strategy in a planned speech on Saturday.

She is also going to accuse the Tories of putting politics and national self-interest above efforts to help build public services and provide health and education for millions of people, according to a Guardian report.

Abbott will tell the national gathering of the campaigning group Global Justice Now that “aid has been hijacked by this government, to subsidize big business, military and anti-immigration policies. They should be using aid money to help build public services, providing health and education for millions of people, not filling the coffers of western big business.”

She is expected to say that the “slide towards using aid to subsidize British business and as a slush fund top up its military and security budgets” will undermine efforts to improve global health and education, and fight climate change.

The British government’s aid strategy, which was published last November, has been criticized for being too “Treasury-led” and for focusing more on the UK’s security and prosperity than on traditional development goals.

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