What does the pledge mean?

Development spending refers to government aid that promotes and targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries. It is also sometimes referred to as Official Development Assistance (ODA) or foreign aid.

This budget is spent on overseas health and disaster relief projects, among other things, but, under international aid rules, can also be used to support asylum seekers and refugees in the UK.

In 1970, the United Nations set a target for developed countries to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on ODA each year, which the UK first achieved in 2013 and then met annually until 2021. The UK government made the target legally binding in 2015.

The then Conservative government reduced ODA spending to 0.5% from 2021, citing the impact of the Covid pandemic on the economy, although the target in legislation remains 0.7%.

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto pledged to restore ODA spending to 0.7% of gross national income “as soon as fiscal circumstances allow”, but did not specify what those conditions were.

In its Autumn Budget 2024, the government used the same “ODA fiscal tests” as had been previously laid out by the Conservatives for returning to spending of 0.7%—these were for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to forecast that there would be both a “sustainable current budget surplus” (meaning the government is “not borrowing for day-to-day spending”) and falling “underlying debt”.

When we asked the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office if these are still the same conditions, it referred us to a ministerial statement made by the international development minister Baroness Chapman of Darlington in March 2025 that confirmed the same tests are being used by the Labour government.

What progress has been made?

We are currently rating this pledge as “appears off track”, as the government has said the ODA budget will be reduced to 0.3% of GNI from 2027/28, in order to fund an increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by April 2027.

Spending on ODA is set to decrease from 0.48% of GNI in 2025/26 to 0.37% in 2026/27, then 0.3% in 2027/28.

In the October 2024 Budget, the government said the OBR’s latest forecast shows that the ODA fiscal tests are not due to be “met within the Parliament”, and said the government would each year “review and confirm” whether or not ODA spending would return to 0.7% according to the latest annual forecast.

In the Spring Statement in March 2025, the government recommitted to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA “when the fiscal circumstances allow”.

But it doesn’t appear likely this will happen in this parliament. In July 2025, foreign office minister Stephen Doughty said the latest OBR forecast “indicates that the tests will not be met in this Parliament”.