Scrap foreign aid to rebuild Britain's Armed Forces, urges Ukip peer
FOREIGN aid should be scrapped so the cash can be spent on rebuilding the Armed Forces, a UK Independence Party peer said tonight.
Lord Stevens of Ludgate said billions of pounds of taxpayers' money was being lost through corruption in developing countries.
Instead, the cash should be used for defending Britain's borders, he argued.
Lord Stevens, the deputy chairman of Express Newspapers, hit out at the waste in a speech to the Gala Dinner at the Ukip spring conference in Margate tonight.
The peer said: "Look at foreign aid, now £11billion and to be maintained at a fixed percentage of gross national product, even passing a law can make sure this is adhered to which strikes me as nonsense.
"The waste of much of this aid, the corruption, the private jets and the mad rush by the UK to spend the last £1billion tells it all.
Look at foreign aid, now £11billion and to be maintained at a fixed percentage of gross national product, even passing a law can make sure this is adhered to which strikes me as nonsense
"Foreign aid defined by some as the transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
"Much better to slash it as is our policy and spend it on our Armed Forces to defend our borders rather than foreign adventures resulting in tragic loss of life."
He added: "The British Army has twice as many horses as tanks, 485 to 227.
"The Army has just over 1,500 armoured fighting vehicles, of which 800 were made in the 1960s.
"We have two aircraft carriers being built but no planes."
Lord Stevens also described the Government's energy policy as "a mess."
"We close coal fire stations, cannot build nuclear because the EU says we are subsidising them and build wind farms which only work 21 per cent of the time and not in cold weather when they are most needed because there is no wind,” he said.
