Dear 'Your Local MP',
I am writing as one of your constituents to say that I find the proposed reduction of our government’s Foreign Aid budget from 0.7 to 0.5 percent of our gross national income an unnecessary and immoral move at a moment when many people in the developing world are being pushed back into poverty because of the Covid-19 pandemic. A cut in aid breaches the Government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on overseas assistance. It will also undermine progress toward the sustainable development goals which the UK lobbied so diligently for at the UN in 2015. The first of these goals is to, ‘End poverty in all its forms everywhere.’ Surely, we have a moral responsibility to assist those struggling to sustain their lives in the face of economic deprivation and with the additional threat of Covid-19. Now is not the time to cut the aid budget. Rather it is a time to reach out generously to those in need around the world.
Sincerely yours,