On 16th June 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the Department for Overseas Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) will merge, uniting the UK’s development and diplomacy in one new department that brings together all of the nation’s international effort. He went on to confirm that work will begin immediately on the merger. The new department – to be called the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – will be established in early September and led by the Foreign Secretary. Its objectives will be shaped by the outcome of the Integrated Review. The new department will inevitably become a significant player in the defence and security arena. But how will the merger of the FCO and DFID affect Defence?
Current UK Approach to Official Development Assistance
The UK government is committed to spending 0.7% of national income on aid or Official Development Assistance (ODA). This commitment, enshrined in law, amounted to £15.2 billion in 2019. However, as research carried out by the House of Commons library shows, if COVID-19 shrinks the economy by 13%, as predicted by the Independent Office for Budget Responsibility, the government could cut the aid budget by £2.5 billion and still fulfil its legal duty.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines ODA as “government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries”. Traditionally, DFID has consistently spent the large majority of UK aid, although, since the publication of an updated UK aid strategy in 2015, this is changing. For example, in 2009 DFID spent over 85% of the nation’s aid budget; ten years later that figure had reduced to 73%.
This is significant as different departments tend to spend aid money on different things. In 2018, the top three aid sectors that DFID spent money on were humanitarian aid, health, and economic infrastructure and services. The FCO, on the other hand, spent almost half of its aid allocation on administrative costs, with the next highest sectors being multisector or cross-cutting projects and government and civil society. This reflects the fact that the FCO spends much of its aid allocation on ‘frontline diplomatic activity’ – costs associated with diplomatic administration connected to development.
Furthermore, a 2019 report by Bob Seely (Conservative MP for Isle of Wight) and James Rogers from the Henry Jackson Society about Global Britain and the future of the aid budget recommended that the UK should only continue to spend 0.7% of national income on aid if it “gains the freedom to define aid as it sees fit”. The report, backed at the time by Boris Johnson, suggests, among other things, that UK peacekeeping operations and the BBC World Service should largely be funded through overseas aid.
Does this open the door for increased use of the aid budget to plug gaps in defence spending?
Possible Changes to the UK’s Spending of Official Development Assistance
Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that Anne-Marie Trevelyan, (the International Development Secretary and Conservative MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed), had ordered officials to look into the option of using the foreign aid budget to purchase a multi-million pound hospital ship similar to US Mercy class vessels, which provides disaster relief and medical care for American forces overseas. Each ship costs around £550 million and contains approximately 1,000 patient beds. The Royal Navy’s only comparable ship, Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus, is due to be retired from service in 2024 and the MOD is yet to commit to a replacement. The possibility of using DFID money to fund a replacement for RFA Argus has regularly been muted within the online defence commentariat (see, for example, Save the Royal Navy and UK Defence Journal).
However, it is not as simple as that. RFA Argus is not a hospital ship as defined in the Geneva Convention. In accordance with Geneva Convention Articles, a hospital ship is “constructed or fitted out by States specially and solely with a view to assisting the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked” In MOD terminology, Argus is a Primary Casualty Receiving Facility (PCRF) and, crucially, can be used for other defence missions. In today’s world of diminishing military capability, maintaining flexibility is paramount. As a previous Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff pointed out (albeit talking about Bay Class RFAs rather than specifically RFA Argus):
“… the most beneficial platform in the fleet at the moment is a Bay Class RFA. They can use it as a C2 node, a medical facility, a logistic disaster release facility, a helicopter platform. It can launch marines out the back as a mother ship; indeed, it can carry armoured tanks if I really needed it to. But, it’s an RFA and if we put a gun on the front actually, it looks like a warship so, I can hold a reasonable cocktail party as though it were a warship. You get maximum utility out of it, but it is just an RFA.”
Conclusion
So should Defence benefit from ODA spending that the merger of the FCO and DFID may bring? The answer is, as ever, not a simple one. Even with a revised view of the aid budget, it would be difficult for the government’s ODA spending to stay within the OECD definition of promoting the economic development and welfare of developing countries while, at the same time, providing Defence with the flexibility it needs to support its full range of military missions. To that end, it may just be a mine-field best avoided.
