Polling finds majority consider £1bn funding for Aids, TB and malaria vaccines a UK success story
Pressure is mounting on Keir Starmer not to cut the UK’s contribution to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria after polling found 62% of Britons believe the government should maintain or increase its support.
The prime minister must decide this year whether to maintain the UK contribution at £1bn or implement a cut in line with recent reductions to the aid budget. A cut of 20% has been rumoured.
The dilemma is acute since the UK is co-chairing the fund’s replenishment summit, due to be held on 21 November in South Africa on the margins of the G20 annual summit. It is possible Starmer will not travel to the G20 but instead send his deputy, David Lammy, asking him to take up the prime minister’s duties as he did at the UN general assembly last month.
The UK is also due to chair the G20 in 2027, an event that threatens to show how far the UK has fallen as an aid superpower since the then prime minister Gordon Brown chaired the G20 in 2009.
