Commenting on today’s announcement that the Department for International Development (DfID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) are to be merged into the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Reprieve’s Deputy Director Dan Dolan, said:
“This merger will make it easier to siphon off aid spending to prop up foreign security partners, as maintaining these alliances will be prioritised over DfID’s mandate to end extreme poverty.
“We’ve already seen FCO officials approve overseas spending to foreign security bodies like torture prisons in Bahrain and death penalty trials in Pakistan and Sierra Leone.
“In light of this announcement we urgently need stronger safeguards to prevent more UK aid from financing executions and torture.”