Boris Johnson merging Foreign Office and aid department

Announcing the merger of two government departments, the PM said it had been “right for their time” to set up the current arrangements back in 1997.

Announcing the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mr Johnson said, there had been an "inherent risk" with the two separate departments, of "our left and right hands working independently”.

Boris Johnson compared the aid money the UK gave to Zambia and Ukraine, and to Tanzania and a group of former Balkan states, adding no single independent department was “empowered to make sure whether they made sense or not”.

UK aid department to be merged with Foreign Office