SCOTLAND needs a “cast-iron guarantee” on jobs over the merger of UK Government departments, the SNP says.
Ian Blackford has made the call over news that two teams are to merge – despite promises from Boris Johnson that he will “keep” a major Scottish base.
As many as 600 people in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, are employed by the 22-year-old Department for International Development (DFiD), which supports some of the world’s most vulnerable people through disaster, disease and destitution.
Serious concerns over the future of the base have gone on for more than one year after Boris Johnson suggested he’d merge that department with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
Today he announced the creation of a “super-department”, telling MPs the pandemic had proved the existing distinction between the teams – one of which focuses on foreign policy, the other on aid – “makes no sense”.
He gave no detailed guarantees about the future of DFiD staff.
But, hitting out at questions over its future from the SNP’s Ian Blackford, he railed: “Of course we’re going to keep those jobs in East Kilbride, of course we’re going to support the work of those fantastic people in East Kilbride.”
Praising the “world-class expertise” and work of DFiD employees on girls’ education, the Ebola crisis and more, Johnson stated the move would “maximise” value for taxpayers, saying: “I have decided to merge DFiD with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to create a new department, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and this will unite our aid with our diplomacy.”
After the session, Blackford said: “The Prime Minister must deliver a cast-iron guarantee that all of these jobs are secure and that they will stay in East Kilbride.”
READ MORE: Backlash as Boris Johnson merges Scottish department with Foreign Office
SNP International Development spokesperson Chris Law tweeted that the merger “isn’t about Global Britain, it’s Little Britain, a distraction whilst this UK Government fails”.
He went on: “This is an utterly shameful attack on the world’s poorest.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer also called it a “distraction” that will “diminish Britain’s place in the world”.
And, questioning the leadership of the new department, the creation of which he welcomed, Tory MP Tom Tugendhat said: “Just as you would not ask an ambassador to command a battle group, you would not ask somebody untrained to have handling or delivery of the millions of pounds that are so well-spent by the people in East Kilbride and actually around the world on our behalf.”
The East Kilbride DFiD base is said to contribute £30 million for the local economy. A petition opposing its closure attracted almost 30,000 signatures within two weeks of its launch last year.
Setting out his rationale for the change, Johnson said DFiD spending is four times that of the FCO “and yet no single decision-maker” has a “comprehensive overview”. He said the UK spends ten times more in Tanzania than in the six western Balkan nations, despite political concerns about that region.
The new department will be overseen by the National Security Council, which Johnson himself chairs.
The Prime Minister stated: “Faced with this crisis today and the opportunities that lie ahead, we have a responsibility to ask whether our current arrangements dating back to 1997 still maximise British influence.”
Ross Greer of the Greens stated: “After the closure of HMRC offices and job centres, it’s clear the Tories don’t care how many jobs they destroy here or how much harm the loss of these services does to people in the UK and across the world.
“Britain has a long, brutal legacy of wrongdoing across the world and the international development programme is one small way in which the government has sought to make amends for that. Now this racist Prime Minister is scrapping DFiD and squeezing the aid budget.”
Dr Nicole Goldin of the US-based Atlantic Council said: “The motive behind the DFiD and FCO merger appears to be political expediency rather than aid effectiveness, which does not bode well.
“If decisions about the allocation and implementation of development and humanitarian resources become primarily based on political or diplomatic interests rather than on key health, climate, or poverty indicators, lives may be lost, conflicts may rage, pandemics may spread, and opportunities for economic growth may not be realised.”
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