Where the £4bn cuts in UK foreign aid might fall

China is targeted as the government outlines plans for reduced overseas spending

Dominic Raab, foreign secretary
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has set out the UK’s new spending priorities
(Image credit: Hollie Adams/Getty Images)

The UK has released the first details of how it intends to impose £4bn worth of cuts to international aid, with critics complaining the vague plans were “slipped out at the end of the day”.

The “long awaited statement” on the government’s international aid spending for 2021-22, which was set out by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in a written statement on Wednesday, did not fully outline cuts or future spending commitments to specific countries or programmes. But, says The Guardian, “its new classifications for how it plans to distribute £8.1bn in aid imply massive reductions in key areas”.

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 Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.