UK Foreign Office minister Baroness Sugg has resigned amid the UK’s announcement of a spending cut to overseas aid.
In her her resignation letter she branded the decision “fundamentally wrong”.
On Wednesday, the government vetoed a Conservative Party commitment to fund the foreign aid budget with the equivalent of 0.7% of gross national income.
Commenting on the cut to overseas aid, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons that the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult to justify to the people spending 0.7% of the national income on overseas activities.
On Wednesday, Rishi Sunak announced a pay freeze for millions of public sector workers, excluding frontline health workers fighting the pandemic and the lowest-paid. Meanwhile, he expressed confidence in spending boosts for infrastructure and research.
Following the announcement, trade unions voiced condemnation over the wage freeze and denounced Sunak’s spending plans as “austerity plain and simple”.