A GROUP of MPs have claimed that the UK’s foreign aid budget has been ‘raided’ to help pay for the costs of housing refugees in hotels.

Refugees are currently being housed in some Carlisle hotels in what the government in November called a ‘short term solution’ to help deal with the ‘record level’ of asylum claims.

The government are paying almost £6million every day to house over 35,000 asylum seekers in hotels across the country.

MPs from the International Development Committee have said that the government are making a ‘political choice’ to spend aid money in the UK and that some of the poorest countries in the world were being ‘short-changed’ by the policy.

Government figures have shown that the Foreign Office's official development assistance budget had been reduced by £1.7billion and has been ‘reallocated’ across government – including to the Home Office.

Labour MP Sarah Champion said she was ‘staggered’ by the level of the ‘raid’ on foreign aid.

Speaking to Sky News, Sarah Champion said: "I have been absolutely staggered by the level of this raid. It has meant that our foreign aid is being spent in the UK, not in the countries that are most in need of it around the world.

READ MORE: Cumbria Park Hotel, Carlisle set to host refugee families

"And whilst I fully support refugees being taken care of in this country, to take it away from the low- and middle-income countries where we could be dealing with the reasons people are forced to flee their homes seems utterly nonsensical to me."

The International Development Committee has called on the government to ringfence the foreign aid development budget to help the poorest and most in-need countries.

A spokesperson for the government said: “We report all aid spending in line with the OECD's rules - which allow funding to be spent on food and shelter for asylum seekers and refugees for their first year in the UK.

"The UK government spent more than £11bn in aid in 2021 and remains one of the largest global aid donors with most of it still going towards supporting the poorest communities around the world.”