Priti Patel

Priti Patel

Conservative — Witham

Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 March 2025

Debate

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Contribution

I will not give way because I do not have time. To spare the blushes of the Minister, I will not relitigate the debate. I am glad that he is in his place because there is a lot to cover. He will speak passionately about development aid and assistance because of his background and experience. I would like to ask him a question about the British Indian Ocean Territory and which budgets the lease costs will come from. Will it be from the FCO, defence or ODA budgets? We still need an explanation of that. I thank the Minister, because before the debate started I received a flurry of answers to some of the questions I have been posing on this issue. However, just for the record, I still do not have clarification, so there will be more. I want to speak about defence spending and ODA. The Government were right to follow our calls to redirect some ODA funds to support the defence budget at this critical time.

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