Taxpayers’ cash offered to pay for OAP health care in China as part of a bumper £1.3 billion fund
MPs let rip yesterday as it emerged UK aid was available for “care in the community” programmes for the superpower’s elderly despite the funding crisis here in the NHS
TAXPAYERS’ cash is being offered to pay for OAP health care in China as part of a bumper £1.3 billion overseas aid fund targeting fast-growing nations.
MPs let rip yesterday as it emerged UK aid was available for “care in the community” programmes for the superpower’s elderly despite the funding crisis here in the NHS.
A cross-Government ‘Prosperity Fund’ invites bids for officials wanting aid to help China develop its health and social care sector as a “policy objective”.
Watchdogs separately revealed the Foreign Office alone has £580 million-worth of aid programmes for nations such as China, India, Turkey and Brazil in the pipeline awaiting final sign-off.
A damning report by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact attacked the programme yesterday – saying there was little to suggest it would achieve its aims of tackling poverty or creating business opportunities for UK firms.
ICAI added that Government departments were rapidly “scaling up” their aid spending – meaning it would be difficult to check value for money.
But MPs said taxpayers would be livid that any cash was earmarked for some of the richest nations in the world in the first place.
The Prosperity Fund runs from 2016 to 2021 – meaning we could be handing cash to China into the next decade as it cements its place as the world’s second biggest economy.
Former Tory Aid Minister Grant Shapps said: “I want aid to work and it can make a huge difference in some of the world’s most impoverished nations.
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“But to maintain public support it’s essential we focus help on improving lives rather than helping an emerging superpower like China build up its welfare system.”
Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland said: “We have a social care crisis here; we can’t fund care in the community yet we can pay for elderly care in China. It’s a joke.”
The Sun last month revealed the UK is sending £3 million of ‘aid’ to fund grassroots football in China. The Prosperity Fund says money is also available for projects that reform China’s financial sector, tackle corruption, and help the country’s educational sector.
Ministers have issued repeated assurances that aid to China has stopped, saying in 2010 that it was ‘not justifiable’ to send millions to an economic superpower.
But the Department for International Development admits that while traditional ‘bi-lateral’ aid has come to an end the UK still supports schemes which generate “sustained economic growth”.
Before Christmas it emerged the UK gave Beijing £44.6 million last year – enough to pay for 1,182 nursing home places. Some £1,500 of Foreign Office money was spent on sharing the UK’s “dementia” expertise.
A Government spokeswoman last night said the programme helped countries such as China "stand on their own two feet".
She said: "Sustained economic growth is the only long term solution to poverty.
"And the Prosperity Fund supports the vital economic development needed to help middle-income countries, where more than 60% of the world's poorest live, to stand on their own two feet and become our trading partners of the future."
A Government source last night signalled £240,000 had already been earmarked for community care work in China.
The Foreign Office insisted no money had gone to China and India "at this stage" as business cases were being developed.