, chaired by Labour's Sarah Champion, are meeting today to discuss and approve the terms of reference for an inquiry into this spending, The Daily Telegraph understands. One IDC insider said the investigation will ultimately seek to determine 'how much [of the foreign aid budget] is being spent, where it's being spent and who's spending it' – amid concerns the Home Office's refugee expenditures are opaque and out of control. To support new refugees with food, travel, education and accommodation over the past year, the Home Office is believed to have spent hundreds of millions of pounds out of the aid budget – meaning there is less available for overseas causes and projects in some of the world's poorest countries. Under international rules, governments are allowed to count the money they spend on the first year of an asylum seeker's stay in their country as foreign aid, known as official development assistance (ODA). Recent analysis from leading development experts showed that of the roughly £11 billion earmarked for foreign aid, £4 billion will be spent in Britain this year, much of it on asylum seekers and refugees, while only £3 billion will be given to overseas humanitarian projects. The rest of the budget will be handed to multinational aid institutions, the experts say. Whitehall sources are concerned the Home Office does not have an effective accounting mechanism in place and lacks the necessary transparency needed to track how much money it is spending on refu){kind=link}
Exclusive: Department’s opaque spending on refugees and asylum seekers to be reviewed by parliamentary inquiry
MPs are set to investigate the Home Office’s “raid” on the UK foreign aid budget to fund spiralling refugee costs, with millions spent every day on housing asylum seekers and migrants crossing the English Channel in hotels.
As a result of the increasing number of Ukrainian, Afghan and Albanian refugees arriving into the UK, estimates suggest the government is now spending more of its foreign aid money at home than on overseas development projects.
Members of the International Development Committee (IDC), chaired by Labour’s Sarah Champion, are meeting today to discuss and approve the terms of reference for an inquiry into this spending, The Telegraph understands.
One IDC insider said the investigation will ultimately seek to determine “how much is being spent, where it’s being spent and who’s spending it” – amid concerns the Home Office’s refugee expenditures are opaque and out of control.