Background:  

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the crisis in Afghanistan and other conflicts and crises has led to more people seeking a safe home in the UK. As a result, The UK government is spending an increasing amount of money to process refugees and provide them with services, such as accommodation.  

So, what’s wrong with this situation? Since the aid cuts in 2020, our Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget has been squeezed and has resulted in cuts to life saving health programs (e.g.Global Fund), responding to humanitarian crises like the ongoing East Africa Hunger and so much more. And in 2022, nearly a third of the budget (29%) was spent in the UK meeting the costs of hosting refugees. 

Whilst our government should do more to help and support refugees, that budget needs to be additional and not taken out of the UK aid budget. UK aid is becoming too stretched to fulfill its purpose, tackling the route causes of forced migration, solving shared global problems, helping vulnerable communities and ending extreme poverty.  

That’s why we launched a new campaign urging for the UK's spending on domestic refugee costs to be additional to the overseas development assistance (ODA) budget.  

More information - ‘Getting A Grip: How the UK should improve Refugee and asylum seeker welfare and protect UK Aid’  

Between October and November, our CLs engaged their networks to write personalised letters to as many need MPs as possible to write to the UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt before the Autumn budget in November, to urge him to follow through on the campaign asks below. 

Campaign Asks for the Chancellor for your MP to share: 

Over the long term:  

• The UK’s spending on in-donor refugee costs should be additional to the ODA budget, whether that is set at 0.5% or 0.7% of GNI (gross national income).  

Over the short term:  

• Further practical steps must be taken to reduce the asylum backlog and move individuals out of expensive hotel accommodation. 

• The Government should look to expand the sponsorship model for Ukrainian refugees to cover other countries with high asylum grant rates such as Afghanistan.  

• The Government should review its methodology for reporting refugee costs and take a more conservative approach. 

The Government could save at least £1bn a year by implementing these recommendations, enough to restore the UK’s failing climate finance commitments; or to both restore funding to regions of East Africa that are suffering from food insecurity and reverse the cut in funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in just one year.