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Reduce foreign aid spending and use for the improvement of the UK

“This Association in Conference assembled urges her Majesty’s Government to greatly reduce the money allocated to foreign aid and use money for the improvement of our own country.”

Herts Lea Valley Association,

2014

As a nation of individuals we respond magnificently to pleas for assistance when disasters occur around the world. However we believe that it is not for the UK to try to influence other nation’s ideology or business decisions by donating aid. Not least because it would appear that it doesn’t work. The practice of giving aid for consideration in business is distasteful to say the least, and when it does not have the desired outcome, as in the case of India not awarding the UK the contract to build Typhoon aircrafts for them; it is humiliating for us as a nation to be publicly disrespected, a position in which we increasingly find ourselves.  Business arrangements should be for businesses to negotiate with assistance from politicians, not funded by aid donations financed by the British taxpayer.  Tory MP Peter Bone, when speaking in 2012 on the topic of aid for India and their subsequent awarding of said aircraft contract to the French urged ministers to abandon pursuing a target to hand out 0.7% of the UK’s entire national income in aid.  He said that the 0.7% target is a vanity project and is being pursued for no good reason at all.  He did not understand the Government’s position on this and he didn’t believe the British public did either.  In 2014 George Osbourne announced in the budget that the UK spend on aid will now be 0.7% making the UK the first G8 country to meet the decades old promise! The total spend by the Department for International Development, one of a number of agencies who are given aid budgets, will be in excess of £50bn for the period from 2010 to 2014. In an article in the Daily Telegraph on 16/02/14, political correspondent Matthew Holehouse wrote about a leaked letter written by Justine Greening MP to all Cabinet Ministers regarding misspent funds, the content of which made for interesting reading. He goes on to give a breakdown on where some of the money goes in relation to four of a number of agencies.

Reply from:-
The Department of Energy and Climate Change – a programme to reduce gas emissions from cattle rearing in Colombia – cost £15m over 4 years. Renewable energy, and low carbon transport projects in Chile, India, Nigeria and Turkey – cost £73m.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office – Britain contributes to Europe Aid, the EU’s aid programme. Projects include equipping border guards in Belarus, a dictatorship, and funding a waterpark in Morocco – cost £1bn a year.

The Department for International Development – Providing funding for Yegna, a girl band dubbed the Ethiopian Spice Girls, to empower teenage girls through song – cost £3.8m a year.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport – A programme following the London 2012 Olympics to make PE lessons more meaningful and exciting in 20 countries including Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey and Brazil – cost over £8.35bn over 4 years. This project at a time where some of our own children, in various parts of the UK, would settle for having some meaningless and unexciting PE lessons as opposed to none, as too many schools in the UK are losing playing fields and swimming pools to profit, despite the huge increase in pupils of all ages, and where the term PE has fast become a derogatory term in a lot of our Education Departments. In a small part of Hertfordshire alone, where many of our members and their families reside, they have seen 2 large swimming pools and quite a large acreage of school playing fields sold off in the last ten years. The rationale for the decline in facilities for healthy pursuits is nearly always lack of funds.  This at a time when obesity and the knock on effect of this on the physical and mental health of our children and young people is ever increasing.  We need to stop throwing our money away on these projects which are at best misguided and at worst a criminal waste of our taxes. If the bulk of the money stayed in the UK to be spent on assisting Health, Education and other social spending we would be all the stronger for it.

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December Update

2020 is a year none of us will forget in a hurry but as it draws to a close we would like to update you with the current situation as far as Head Office is concerned. The office is now closed until after Christmas but Claire, our secretary, is working from home.

It has been a very strange year with no events, no clubs, no getting together. All our events had to be cancelled, and though we are no different to any other organisation it has been such a pity because this is what we are about friendship, education and fun. On the positive side we have worked hard getting out letters to as many members as we could with the help of club officials. They have been brilliant keeping in touch with their members through emails, ‘WhatsApp’ and phone calls they all deserve a star!

With the moving into different tiers it sometimes gets very confusing and loneliness has been talked about a lot on the television and the media but we hope through the clubs this has not affected our members too much. With the hope of a vaccine it might not be too long before we are back and enjoying our club life again and remember after December 21st the days start to get longer and Spring will be around the corner.

Here at Head Office Eleanor retired at the end of September, Eleanor had told us of her plans at the beginning of the year so we had plenty of notice but of course we could not have the retirement party she was entitled to. However, we are hoping she will come to conference next year and we can say farewell properly. We did send flowers on the day and Mary, our treasurer made her a collage of all our good wishes, and it was beautiful.

If you are looking at our website for the first time look at the list of clubs and see if we have one near you, they are friendly places to go to. Most meet once a week with speakers, demonstrations and outings. Each club is different and if there isn’t one in your area, why don’t you start one!  We honestly think our sort of club is just what the women of our country needs right now.  We are a non-political, non-religious and non- sectarian group that offers friendship and interest. Take a look at this website and see what we have to offer.

So Christmas is coming and what a difference to the one we probably envisaged, but remember ladies we might not be able to party as we have in the past but if we keep safe we can celebrate next year with family and friends. 

So on behalf of The Committee to all our members and whoever is looking at this website, we wish you all a Merry Christmas, keep well and let’s look forward to a better New Year.