A difference between Tory and Labour

Labour has been making much of their support for a new law which would enshrine in legislation the commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on foreign aid.

Labour themselves first made that commitment when they were running the country a decade ago.

Yet it was the present coalition government which actually hit that target last year for the first time ever, as you can read at

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/300084/Prov-ODA-GNI-2013a.pdf

There is a graph on the site which shows that Labour in government never got the share of aid above 0.5%. And that was at a time when they had inherited a very strong economy from Ken Clarke and it was far easier to find money for things.

Writing targets into law is not actually the best way of hitting them: it's just the best way to score a political point.

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