Preet Kaur Gill MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development, commenting on the findings of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact's review of UK aid to Afghanistan, said: "It is shameful and wrong that £252 million of British aid money - required by law to be spent on poverty reduction - helped fund counter-insurgency operations responsible for torture, extrajudicial killings and corruption. "That attempts to halt this were overruled at the highest levels of government is deeply concerning. Ministers must come clean and answer who exactly intervened, on what grounds, whether human rights abuses were raised and why civil servants were overruled. "Only Labour has a serious plan to spend the UK’s aid budget effectively, develop a new model for international development with the independence needed to solve the big crises facing the world and stand up for human rights."
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Notes to editors:
ICAI review, 24 November link
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