Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in the Commons on Tuesday the Department for International Development (DFID) is to merge with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
This will see the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which has come under fire by MPs.
He told the Commons, “We must now strengthen our position in an intensely competitive world by making sensible changes.
“And so, I have decided to merge DFID with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to create a new department, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.”
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy slammed the move by Johnson and tweeted, “Extraordinary that in the middle of a global crisis, the UK is retreating from the world.
“Aid has long been one of Britain’s strengths helping us to build strong alliances, act as a moral force and creating greater global security.
“Once again we are diminished in the world.”
The merger will be finalised and will be formally formalised by early September, and there will be no compulsory redundancies.
Rory Stewart, both a former international development secretary and foreign office minister, told PA news agency, “I don’t think it is the smart option.
“There are many other things we need to be concentrating on at the moment.
“It will lead to a lot of disruption, a lot of uncertainty at a time when the Foreign Office has an enormous amount to be focused on.”
Tory MP Andrew Mitchell, who served as international development secretary during the coalition government, criticised the move saying, “abolishing Dfid would be a quite extraordinary mistake.”
In a statement to PA, Mitchell said it would “destroy one of the most effective and respected engines of international development anywhere in the world.”
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