Hello, I'm Susan Hume and this is the Yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Thursday, the 19th of March, there was anger over cuts to the UK's overseas aid budget.

It's just as well-being a minister is not a popularity contest.

This is a shameful moment.

These cuts do not aid our defence.

They make the whole world more vulnerable.

Utterly shameful.

It's surely madness.

Well, they were all upset at the government's decision

to cut the budget for UK overseas aid

to 0.3% of national income.

It means that next year, age spending will be more than half from what it was in 2021.

The Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, explained that as recent weeks had shown, the money was needed elsewhere.

UK jets fly defensive operations in the Middle East, while our carrier strike group has been preparing

to head to the High North. In order to fund the additional defence spending, we also had to take

the hugely difficult decision to reduce our development budget over the next few years.

She said areas of conflict and need would be prioritised for what money was left,

such as Ukraine, Sudan, Lebanon and Gaza, as would support for women and girls.

The Conservatives don't disagree with the principle.

In fact, cutting the aid budget to fund defence was their idea in the first place.

But the shadow foreign minister,

Wendy Morton, felt she still didn't have any actual detail more than a year after the plan was

...