UK expected to reduce contribution to Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 20%
UK expected to reduce contribution to Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 20%
A group of seven Labour MPs who served as ministers under Keir Starmer have written to the prime minister warning that an expected cut to UK funding for aid to combat preventable diseases would be both a “moral failure” and a strategic disaster.
With ministers and officials expected to decide the UK’s contribution to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria within days, the letter renews pressure on Starmer to pull back from an expected 20% cut.
Dozens of other Labour MPs have already expressed alarm at the idea of the UK slashing its contribution to the Global Fund, especially as this would be announced on the sidelines of next month’s G20 summit in South Africa, which Starmer is attending.
There is wider concern about Starmer’s apparent reluctance to involve the UK in development projects, with his government deciding on the eve of the Cop30 climate summit to not contribute to a fund for the world’s remaining tropical forests.
Aid groups have said that if the UK contribution to the Global Fund for 2027-29 is cut from £1bn to £800m, as has been discussed by senior government officials, it would badly hamper the work of one of the most cost-effective aid programmes of modern times, and could cause up to 340,000 avoidable deaths.
The letter to Starmer is private, and only two of the signatories, Gareth Thomas and Fleur Anderson, have chosen to say they are involved. But all seven were junior ministers under Starmer, losing their jobs in September’s reshuffle.
