Former MI5 chief advises on aid and defence spending
A former head of MI5 has warned Andy Burnham that the prime minister cannot pit international aid against defence spending – by using cuts in the former to pay for the latter – and should instead take a “holistic” approach, reports BritPanorama.
Lord Jonathan Evans, who was director general of the intelligence agency between 2007 and 2013, spoke at an event hosted by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London about the decision last year to reduce aid spending from 0.5 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.3 per cent over the next few years, in order to fund increased defence spending.
When asked for his advice to Mr Burnham on the national security implications of the aid cuts, Lord Evans said: “My advice to the prime minister would be to say you need to think about this as a holistic issue. You can’t say ‘we’re not going to do aid, but we are going to do defence’, because defence doesn’t stand alone. It stands as part of a stable environment within which we can continue to build allies.”
Lord Evans also addressed how to achieve “maximum impact” from a shrinking aid budget, noting that countries across Africa and others impacted by conflict are set to be hit hard. He emphasized that investment should be made pre-emptively to prevent conflict rather than solely responding to crises after they emerge. “We should be intervening early to prevent conflict,” he stated.
He continued, highlighting that conflict prevention has traditionally been supported by the UK through the Integrated Security Fund, which has recently seen funding cuts. “That has been cut back, and in my view that is a false economy because we will have bigger problems to sort out later,” he added.
Funding for conflict-prevention work through the aid-powered part of the Integrated Security Fund (ISF) is set to decline from £343 million in 2024-25 to £194 million in 2026-27, despite an increase in global conflicts, currently at levels unseen since the Second World War.
Lord Evans emphasized the necessity of addressing the connections between conflict zones and poverty. “If you map where are the conflicts and where is the most poverty and lack of development, they overlap with each other,” he explained. “So, if we can reduce conflict, look at places like Sudan, Syria, etc., then we can actually get better effect for our resources than responding to problems as they emerge.”
“Put it into prevention rather than cure – that is what we have got to do,” he concluded.
