Former Scots Tory leader joins calls to reverse cuts in foreign aid budget

RUTH Davidson last night warned Boris Johnson he risks taking the Tories back to being seen as the ‘nasty party’ unless he reverses cuts to foreign aid spending.

The former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who is set to join the House of Lords next year, said it was ‘clear’ MPs and peers don’t back losing £4billion from the overseas development budget this year.

She urged the Prime Minister to hold a vote in Parliament before the summer on the change, which is a breach of the party’s election manifesto commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid. ‘It really does risk us being transported back to being thought of as the “nasty party” in people’s minds once again,’ she said.

Ministers have so far avoided holding a vote on the aid cut due to fears the PM would lose. A group of about 50 Tory MPs, including former prime minister Theresa May, are opposed to the cut, saying it would lead to the deaths of the world’s most vulnerable. Government sources last night said no decision had yet been made on whether MPs would be given a say.

Tory former Cabinet minister Karen Bradley said: ‘The Government can’t take backbenchers for granted, even with an 80-seat majority.’ But a poll published last November showed that two-thirds of the public supported the proposed cut to the foreign aid budget.

■Six Conservative former work and pensions secretaries have written to Rishi Sunak, urging him not to reverse a rise in benefits. The Chancellor has announced that the £20-per-week boost to Universal Credit that has been in place during the pandemic will be scrapped in September. But Stephen Crabb, Damian Green, David Gauke, Esther McVey and Amber Rudd – led by Sir Iain Duncan Smith – last night asked Mr Sunak to make the hike permanent.