Politics, World

Tory Frontbencher Slaps Down Robert Jenrick For Claiming UK’s Foreign Aid Budget is ‘Bloated’

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A senior Tory frontbencher has slapped down Robert Jenrick for claiming the UK’s international aid budget is “bloated”.

The Conservative leadership contender made the claim in his speech to the party’s annual conference last week.

He said: “Why is it that so much of the British establishment seems to put Britain last?

“I am told that we only have enough munitions to last a few weeks in war, and yet our country is giving foreign aid to parts of the world richer than our own.

 “So if I am your leader I will stand for cutting our bloated foreign aid budget and for spending 3% of GDP on our defence.”
Asked about his comments on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell, who is also a former international development secretary, said: “Well if only it was bloated. We’ve seen an enormous amount of the aid budget going to pay for the first year of asylum seekers in Britain.

“That’s absolutely within the rules, but it’s an enormous amount of money, and Jeremy Hunt was persuaded to provide additional money to compensate for that.”

Laura Kuenssberg replied: “So Robert Jenrick’s wrong about that then?”

Mitchell said: “I understand what he’s saying about the importance of increasing defence expenditure, but I’m afraid to describe the development budget as bloated is simply not true.”

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