Benn attacks Conservatives on overseas aid

Friday, 11 June 2004 12:00 AM

The International Development Secretary has said that Conservative policies on international development would be disastrous for the world's poor.

In a speech at Church House in London Hilary Benn accused the Conservatives of planning to cut aid if they gain power.

Mr Benn said that under Labour there has been a 93 per cent increase in the aid budget and promised £4.5billion in annual aid by 2005/06.

He said that in contrast the Tories are "committed to a real terms cut of £229 million in the Department for International Development's budget over two years, reducing aid to some of the world's poorest people."

Highlighting Labour's creation of the Department for International Development (DfID) and support of the UN Millennium Development Goals he said: "The UK is now the world's second largest bilateral donor in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, and we have committed $280 million to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria up to 2008."

Mr Benn said that the Conservatives' pledge to freeze the DfID's budget "would affect help for some of the poorest people in the world."

He claimed that "690,000 children in Africa could be provided with school places each year with the money the Tories want to cut."

"The Tories must now explain where the £229 million cut from DFID's budget over 2 years would be found." Mr Benn concluded.

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