Money intended for international aid would be used by the Conservatives for a new military stabilisation force, angering charities who claim that it could put aid workers’ lives at risk.
Andrew Mitchell, the Shadow International Development Secretary, told The Times that the move would allow vital reconstruction work to take place in the “golden hours” after troops left an area as the force — based on a Territorial Army model — would do work too unsafe for aid agencies.
The cost of the force would be considerable, however. Tobias Ellwood, a shadow minister who has set out a blueprint for such a force, said that it could exceed £500 million a year. Bankers, electricians and bricklayers could all form part of the body, overseen by a National Security Council chaired by the Prime Minister.
Mr Mitchell insisted that the Department for International Development (DfID) would continue to pay an influential role in a Conservative government, despite a new policy document saying that it would have an “agreed agenda” with the Foreign Office. Until now, the departments have largely worked separately. Mr Ellwood, a shadow tourism minister who has spent time in Afghanistan and has close relations with senior US military figures, said advisers would become army members through a special course.
The cost of the new force would be considerable. “Two headquarters, two brigades, heavy with Royal Engineer units as well as the training and holding of an expanded TA is likely to exceed £500 million a year,” Mr Ellwood wrote in the Westminster Conservative Association magazine Blueprint last month. A regular infantry brigade costs around £100 million a year.
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However, the move would circumvent the expensive “duty of care”, which requires the provision of several armed bodyguards to all civilian DfID and FCO civilian staffers in war zones. Mr Mitchell denied that the plans watered down a commitment to spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on aid.
David Mepham, Save the Children’s Director of Policy: “Too close a relationship between humanitarian objectives and security policy objectives could put the lives of aid workers at greater risk.” Mr Mitchell said that it should not jeopardise long-term aid workers since members of the brigade were carrying out a different function.