Up to a third of overseas aid budget used for housing refugees in UK, MPs report

Select committee accuses government of wilfully obscuring facts around ‘unsustainable’ trend

As much as a third of the heavily cut UK overseas aid budget is now being spent on housing refugees in the UK, the international development select committee says in a report today.

Describing the trend as unsustainable and unprecedented, the committee also finds UK aid spending per refugee has almost tripled, increasing from £6,700 in 2019 to £21,700 in 2021, according to the most recent three years of figures.