The head of Scotland’s Catholic aid agency has defended Britain’s £12 billion overseas aid budget amid calls for it to be used to support the struggling NHS.
“Charity begins at home and we have a responsibility to the people of Britain,” Alistair Dutton, Director of SCIAF, told The Tablet. “But we are already spending 10 times as much on our own healthcare, than what we are spending on helping the billions of people who live without access to the most basic healthcare worldwide.”
This week the British Red Cross described the NHS as facing a “humanitarian crisis” as hospitals and ambulance services struggle to keep up with demand.
But Dutton, who has in the past advised the Government on its aid budget, continued: “To rob the poorest to pay for marginal improvements in our own healthcare, when we already spend so much on this, is of a different moral order to helping people in the kind of extreme poverty which this money is intended for.”
Dutton praised the expertise of the Government’s Department for International Development (DfID) as an aid donor.
“The story rarely gets told of how much good is being achieved. I have firsthand experience of working on DfID grants and seeing the amazing difference of what they achieve. I really honestly think DfID is one of the best donors in the world.”
SCIAF currently benefits from a small number of DfID grants. The money from one has transformed the way women are able to farm in their fields in Malawi and Zambia, Dutton explained.
In 2015 Britain gave away £12.1bn in foreign aid, more than any country except the United States. It was one of just six countries to meet the UN’s target of spending 0.7 per cent of Gross NationaI Income on international assistance.
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