Cameron defends aid budget

The Prime Minister has faced criticism from some sectors of his own party for ringfencing the Department of International Development budget and committing to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on aid.

Mr Cameron said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “It can sometimes be a difficult argument because times are tough here at home and we have had to make difficult decisions. But Britain is an incredibly generous country, the British people are generous.”

Mr Cameron said Britain had a “moral obligation” to assist the poorest parts of the world and added: “There is an additional self interested argument which is if you want to make sure countries don’t break down and we don’t suffer from problems of mass migration and pandemics, problems of climate change, then actually investing money in countries like Somalia which could otherwise break up and cause problems for us at home, it’s in our self interest to do that as well.”