Foreign aid should be spent on preventing 1.3m road deaths worldwide every year, Yorkshire MP says

Labour’s Barry Sheerman will call on the Government to use part of its overseas aid budget, which is 0.7% of national income, and its expertise in road safety to try and stop the 1.3m road deaths every year around the world.

Barry Sheerman: No room for complacency over safety on our roads The Huddersfield MP will press Ministers on the issue in a Westminster Hall debate on Tuesday April 24.

Ahead of the debate, he told The Yorkshire Post: “If you want one of the safest and most effective ways of helping people in the developing world, invest in the kind of road safety knowledge and practice that we know about.

The Yorkshire Post says: William Hague’s defence of overseas aid. Fallout from the Oxfam scandal“We’ve got really a great deal of knowledge and expertise, so if you marry what we know in our country and in our transport sector with international development, that would probably be the most effective use of international aid.”

Mr Sheerman, who has long called for improvements in road safety, stressed that the money should come “with strings attached”.

“For too long we’ve invested in things that look good but don’t deliver.” he said.

Penny Mordaunt: Foreign aid is at heart of Britain’s role in the world