Bill Gates urges UK to keep up lead function in serving to the world’s poorest folks

Bill Gates wants to talk about money.

This is not a surprising subject for one of the richest people on earth but the money he wants to talk about is not his fortune but the lack of funding for the world ’s poorest. What he describes as the “golden age” of giving is over. In the first 20 years of this century the richest nations donated a record amount in aid.

As a result, millions of children were lifted out of poverty, fewer people died from preventable diseases such as malaria and TB, and the number of under- fives dying from malnutrition was halved from 10 million to five million. Then the pandemic struck. Since then the US, Britain, France and Germany have all cut the amount they spend on international development.

This is why Mr Gates is in London. He has come to urge Keir Starmer to maintain Britain’s global leadership in helping the world’s poorest. “It is sad to say the key limiting factor as I look to the next 10 years will be aid generosity. The world looks to the British example,” Mr Gates said.

The plea came amid fears Rachel Reeves will freeze aid spending when she delivers her October 30 Budget. Mr Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board in 2020 to focus on his philanthropic work. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he set up 25 years ago has given hundreds of millions of pounds to aid programmes around the world.

He has also signed the Giving Pledge and will give at least half of his £80billion fortune to good causes. But Mr Gates has not completely renounced the billionaire lifestyle. Our interview is conducted in a suite of offices in one of London’s most exclusive hotels. Outside there are at least a dozen aides and security personnel. Inside there are bowls of fruit and fancy looking cakes.

Though Mr Gates limited himself to sipping a small bottle of Diet Coke. “Bill does not do small talk” I was advised, and it is clear within seconds of meeting him there is a steeliness behind the computer geek exterior. The same drive that led him to create one of the world’s largest firms is now being applied to eradicating poverty. The UK’s development spending was cut from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income by Rishi Sunak.

Mr Gates, born and raised in Seattle, US, said he wanted “all rich countries” to spend at least 0.7% on international development. “No one expects the Labour government even in the next couple of years to go back to 0.7%,” he said. But added: “All rich countries should be at 0.7. I come from a rich country that’s very far away from 0.7, though it has such a big economy it is the biggest aid giver.

“Everywhere I go, I was in Germany this week, other than Sweden and Norway that manage to go above 0.7, we are saying to everyone else get to 0.7. And if everyone was, then we would definitely resume the path.”

The path he refers to is funding international projects such as Gavi, which has vaccinated millions of people against malaria and other preventable diseases. Britain is the main funder of Gavi. The Gates Foundation is the second biggest. While he praised the leadership shown by ex-PMs Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Mr Gates was less complimentary about the Tories.

He said: “When the Conservative government came in initially they did embrace these issues. They were trying to, I don’t know if this is the right term, to ‘de-nastify’ themselves by picking climate, gay marriage and aid as three things they would sort of say, ‘Yes, Labour, you’re right, these are important things’.

“And they were actually pretty good on aid and for a few years they were willing to talk about it. Then they were still good but didn’t talk about it and then they did the cut to 0.7% to 0.5%.”

Mr Gates, who was given an honorary knighthood by the late Queen in 2005, is too diplomatic to demand the new Labour government immediately reverses the aid cuts. But he does raise concern 28% of the UK’s aid budget is now spent on processing and housing asylum seekers in Britain.

This, he told MPs this week, was “invading the leadership the UK provides.” He also hinted he would like No10 to re-establish a separate department for International Development instead of it being part of the Foreign Office.

“I thought there was some clarity with having a separate department. It doesn’t mean the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] structure can’t work [but] they had incredible people in DFID of all the agencies we work with in the world,” he said.

Mr Gates added: “We are trying to say, even in the current environment when demands on the development budget in particular are very difficult. We are saying, ‘Maintain the British leadership as No 1 in Gavi and tied for No2 in Global Fund’.”

The father-of-three’s manner may be restrained but he speaks with the zeal of an evangelist about the impact of aid. It “really does work”, he says. “We have incredible examples in Asia where India, Indonesia and Vietnam that were significant Gavi recipients, they grew their economies because once you get health and education right, that’s the magic formula and you go to what you want to be that’s self-sufficient.”