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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, foreign aid is one of the key pillars of David Cameron’s brand of compassionate Conservatism so while the Ministry of Defence is facing further cuts in spending as are other departments, the Prime Minister has ruled out any reduction to the budget for international development. I am joined now from Suffolk by the former Defence Minister, Sir Gerard Howarth, a very good morning to you Sir Gerald. Do you think Mr Cameron is right to continue to protect that budget in the face of cuts elsewhere?

SIR GERALD HOWARTH: No, I don’t think he is and I have made that quite clear to him for a number of months now. Of course we all support overseas aid, it does a tremendous job for Britain and it does a tremendous job for the poorer peoples in the world but we face a crisis and that crisis was created by the last Labour government which ran up this massive budget deficit and the Chancellor is having to find yet more cuts, £11 billion worth, and only £3 billion has been offered up by the Departments who have already agreed further cuts which leaves the Ministry of Defence and a couple of other departments to shoulder the burden. The more departments you ring fence the more difficult it becomes for the Chancellor.

DM: But of course there is this issue, isn’t there, of our international commitments and by any measure, however poor we feel, wealth is relative and compared to so many developing countries we still have an awful lot more than they have. Isn’t it right that a tiny proportion of GDP is given overseas?

SIR GERALD HOWARTH: Well of course it is increasing from about £8 billion a year to something like £13 billion a year and I think the Prime Minister can hold his head up high and say that the commitment I gave in 2009, I have certainly done my bit to put the United Kingdom and my word on the line on this, I have done my bit, we are amongst the top giving nations in terms of our percentage of GNP over any other country, the United States only gives 0.2% of GNP, we are now at 0.56% and this year the Chancellor is planning to give a further £2.5 billion, £2500 million, to overseas aid, at the same time as we are making soldiers redundant and we are reducing our capability and incurring criticism from the United States, our principal ally, the head of whose army has said that Britain is really not able to contribute as it was contributing before.

DM: Do you think that one of the Prime Minister’s reasons for sticking so strongly to that commitment is of course the affect that it has on the perception of the Conservative party itself, seen in some quarters as uncaring, this does something to address that?

SIR GERALD HOWARTH: Well I think he’s addressed that. No Prime Minister has done as much as David Cameron to fulfil Britain’s obligation to this 0.7% of gross national income, a percentage point I might say which is completely arbitrary and according to that arbitrary number Britain is doing extremely well, I think he can hold his head up high and I do salute the fact that he has stuck to a commitment that he gave in 2009 but what I do believe is that circumstances have changed, we have inherited this massive budget deficit. Yes, we have cut it by a fifth but we have a long way to go, we are just piling up more debt upon a large amount of debt already to hand on to our children and to give all this money to overseas aid, we are basically going to impoverish ourselves so that we do not secure the recovery in the British economy which will enable us to be able to give more money. The number one priority is to secure the recovery of the British economy and when we have to decide on priorities, it seems to me in this very dangerous world which the Prime Minister quite rightly wants Britain to have an influential role, that we should not be cutting our armed forces any further and if we do so we are at risk at falling below the 2% of gross national income that NATO members are committed to. We’ve been criticising our NATO allies for not having spent up to the minimum 2% limit and the Americans are now turning on us and I think I understand where the Americans are coming from.

DM: Sir Gerald Howarth, thank you very much.