Where does the UK's foreign aid money go and how does it compare to the rest of the world?
Several senior Tories including former Prime Minister Theresa May and former Brexit secretary David Davis are leading the rebellion against the cut. Around 30 Tory MPs, led by former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell, are hoping to use an amendment to legislation setting up the Advanced Research and Invention Agency to force the new body to make up the funding to meet the 0.7% goal. The issue has resurfaced at a sensitive time for Mr Johnson, who hosts leaders from some of the worlds richest countries at the G7 summit in Cornwall this week.Mr Mitchell said the amendment was a bid to ensure Mr Johnson could travel to Cornwall to meet his G7 counterparts on Friday as first among equals. Writing in the Guardian, Mr Mitchell said: The eyes of the world are truly upon us. But in this moment Britain is found wanting, because we have removed a foundational piece of our own global leadership. Listen to the Calling Peston podcast  Britain is the only G7 nation cutting aid this year.  Mr Johnson has been encouraging rich nations to share Covid vaccines with poor nations recently and promoting international aid as key to the recovery from the pandemic. The government said at the time of the cut it would only be temporary but the Conservatives have been under pressure from some within their party to lower the amount of money spent on foreign aid for years. The Tory rebels are supported by the opposition parties and if the speaker allows the vote on the amendment Mr Johnson could see his first defeat in parliament since the 2019 election. The government says the cut to the foreign aid budget save will save around 4bn a year. The amount spent on aid also fell in 2020 due to the contraction of the economy, equivalent to around 700million. In 2019, the top five countries that receive aid from the UK government were Pakistan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Yemen and Nigeria. The UK has sent millions to Yemen to help with humanitarian aid Credit: AP  Just over half of the UK's international aid spending in 2019 was spent in Africa with most of the rest spent in Asia. In 2019 the UK spent 1.4bn on health projects including medical research, family planning and the control of infectious diseases. It also spent around the same amount of money on humanitarian aid in conflict regions like Yemen, Syria and Bangladesh. The United Nations Population Fund, which helps poor countries with family planning, sexual health and reproductive problems said their funding from the UK was cut by 85% when the foreign aid budget was slashed. They said if their funding had not been cut they would have been able to prevent 250,000 maternal and child deaths, 14.6 million unintended pregnancies and 4.3 million unsafe abortions. The cut also saw 150 million withdrawn from research and management of neglected tropical diseases. The charity Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases said the cuts will left more than 200 million people vulnerable to these devastating diseases at a time when we are also fighting a global health pandemic. The UK has been building classrooms and funding education in Pakistan in recent years Credit: AP  Former Brexit secretary Mr Davis told BBC Radio 4s Today that the harmful and devastating cuts would result in deaths around the world. There will be massive cuts in efforts to provide clean water, which will kill children worldwide, and in funding for food for starving people, where again thousands will die, Mr Davis told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. In 1970, the UK pledged to spend 0.7% of its national income on aid as part of a United Nations agreement. It was among 30 wealthy countries which vowed to meet this commitment and the UK enshrined it into law in 1970. Since then only 14 countries have met the target at some point and only seven met it in 2020. Several rich nations have gone over the 0.7% limit at some point, with Germany spending 0.74%, Denmark 0.73%, Luxembourg 1.02%, Norway 1.11% and Sweden 1.14%. The UK has been sending aid to support Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in recent years. Credit: AP  The US is the biggest aid donor, it spent 25.04bn in 2019 on aid, followed by Germany's 20.04bn and the UK's 13.12bn. Despite the US being the biggest donor, it only spent 0.16% of its GDP on foreign aid in 2019. Other major economies signed up to the UN agreement also fall far below the 0.7 commitment, in 2019 Australia spent 0.22% of its GDP on foreign aid, New Zealand 0.28%, France 0.44% and Spain 0.21%. Some nations that are not part of the UN agreement still spend a significant amount on foreign aid. Turkey has one of the largest foreign aid budgets in terms of its overall GDP in the world, spending 1.15% in 2019. Russia is among the lowest in the world for developed countries, only spending around 0.03% of its GDP on foreign aid in 2019.