Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to cut foreign aid spending by £150million have sparked a fiery clash on GB News, as the Saturday Five star Emma Dunwell declared “charity starts at home”.
Debating the move on GB News, Ms Dunwell and commentator Cai Wilshaw came to blows over Labour’s spending abroad compared to the UK itself.
In a report revealed by The Independent, the Prime Minister is set to cut foreign aid spending by 15 per cent, pledging £850million to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria.
According to the report, the decision would cost an estimated 255,000 lives.
Emma Dunwell and Cai Wilshaw clashed over Labour’s plans to cut foreign aid by 15 per cent
|
GB NEWS
Hitting out at the plans by the Prime Minister, Mr Wilshaw told GB News: “I know that the international aid has been cut by the UK taking its lead from the US in the last year, and I know that charity starts at home.
“I know it’s unpopular to say, but we used to be proud of the fact that the UK was one of the leading lights in international aid that has seen global poverty reduced to a fraction of what it used to be. We almost eradicated poverty and HIV, Aids, malaria, tuberculosis, all of which now are threatened, are on the rise.”
He added: “Now, some of Donald Trump’s aid cuts, US aid cuts, has meant that there are around 10 million new cases of HIV Aids, 2.9 additional deaths by 2030. That’s not to mention all the other types of diseases that are on the rise as a result of these cuts.
“And why does that matter? It matters because any chaos across the world, any rise in infections of these types of diseases and you bet one day or another, very soon that will come to our shores.”
Sir Keir Starmer is said to be cutting £150million in foreign aid to fight deadly diseases
|
PA
He stated: “It is a moral stain on our conscience that we’ve let this be cut to such a level.”
In complete disagreement with Mr Wilshaw, Ms Dunwell told the Saturday Five panel: “Well, I agreed with you until you got to about 10 seconds in.
“Charity does start at home, but it can’t move outwards until the charity is complete at home. We have so many people on our streets. We have so many people choosing between heating and eating. We have the winter fuel payment issue. That was only last year. And obviously now all taxes are going up.
“So why should we be the piggy bank and the essentially the first aid kit for everyone else when we cannot even looking a bit, we cannot even look after ourselves?”
Dunwell and Wilshaw clashed on whether the Government should be cutting foreign spending
|
GB NEWS
Offering an example to Mr Wilshaw, Ms Dunwell explained: “It would be like me inviting you into my home when I have no electric, no food, there’s holes in the walls, and then I invite you and the rest of your family, and then I let you rearrange my furniture to your liking. This is what we’re doing at the moment.
“The British people are being put to the bottom of the barrel in our own country, and it’s not controversial to say that we should be put first. Any other country would be saying exactly the same thing. I think that we need to focus on getting ourselves sorted out before we can help everyone else. I’m not against aid, I just think that there’s a right time and now is not it.”
Mr Wilshaw responded: “Well you are against aid, because the logic of your argument is we need to sort out our problems before we can help other people.
“It’s deaths all across the world and poverty all across the world if we decide to cut aid to the levels that we’ve never seen for decades.”