UK Chancellor delivers fiscal statement

On Overseas Development Assistance (ODA):

“We welcome the recognition of the importance of the UK’s commitment to support the world’s most vulnerable people and look forward to the UK government returning support for vulnerable communities around the world to 0.7% of GDP, as it promised last year.

"In the meantime, it is critical not only for the UK’s moral authority but also for its security, its standing in the world, the skills it needs and the success of British business interests that the vast majority of ODA money is spent overseas, supporting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

"It is contradictory and nonsensical for this government to bemoan the growing number of people who feel they have no better option than to risk everything crossing the Channel, while at the same time removing aid that could help those people to make their lives better.

“Little more than a week ago, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told COP27 the country would honour its climate finance commitment because it was the right thing to do. His government needs to show that the UK’s commitment to climate justice is more than just hot air."

On energy:

“We welcome the efforts to protect international commitments on climate change but this budget belongs in a bygone age. It does nothing to stop taxpayers' money being hoovered up by big energy companies and then squirreled away by private shareholders. 

“It leaves the record profits for dirty energy largely untouched as the world heats up and people already in financial distress are forced to bear the burden of higher energy prices.

“A smart fiscal policy for the future would provide massive financial stimulus to switch to clean energy paid for by windfall profits.”