Spending foreign aid budget on refugees in UK is ‘wreaking havoc’, says watchdog

Official statistics show 27.9% of the total UK aid budget in 2023 was spent on supporting the first-year housing and food costs of refugees in Britain, an increase of £600m.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), which oversees foreign aid, said the system of loading the housing costs of UK asylum seekers on to a budget set aside to alleviate poverty abroad was creating “perverse incentives”, adding that the FCDO in effect “has to take the financial hit” for the Home Office’s overspending.

It “leads to the aid budget being spent in a manner that is not good value for money nor in line with UK international development strategic priorities.

Ian Mitchell, from the Centre for Global Development in Europe, said: “Headline figures showing the government spent 0.58% of the country’s income on aid are masking a bigger problem.

For instance, the share spent domestically on administration doubled between 2013 and 2022 (now 7% of the bilateral total), while it rose by almost three-quarters for research (to 2.7%) and more than tripled for students.

ICAI highlights the limbo status of the cohort of 55,000 asylum seekers who have arrived since 20 July 2023 by irregular routes and after the passage of the Illegal Migration Act.