The Legal Framework for UK Aid After Brexit

Abstract

Since 2015, when the UK legislated a target for aid spending, the nature of its spending on official development assistance has changed significantly. Government departments not traditionally associated with spending aid have found themselves in charge of disbursing aid funds as a result of that year’s spending review. The vote to exit the European Union has subsequently introduced a number of uncertainties. What considerations will be at play in UK aid spending after Brexit? What will become of official development assistance currently spent through European mechanisms? In what sort of configuration might the Department for International Development and other government departments find themselves? The focus of this paper is on how the vote to leave the European Union might affect the way the UK spends aid. It asks whether the legal framework for this spending is robust enough to withstand the demands that a new post-Brexit political and economic context will make.