UK aid cuts 'unprincipled, unjustified and harmful', say experts and MPs

Cuts announced by Rishi Sunak will hit girls and women in poorest countries hardest, with charities predicting hundreds of thousands of deaths

• UK's foreign aid budget to be reduced to 0.5% of gross national income
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The UK aid cuts announced by chancellor Rishi Sunak could see a million girls lose out on schooling, nearly three million women and children go without life-saving nutrition and 5.6 million children left unvaccinated, leading to tens of thousands" of deaths, charities, aid experts and MPs have said.

They described the slash in funding to overseas aid, from 0.7% to 0.5% of Britain's gross national income, as unprincipled, unjustified and harmful" just as a global health crisis is throwing decades of progress on poverty, healthcare and education into reverse.