内容摘要：Labour promised in its manifesto to "end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds".

Labour promised in its manifesto to "end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds".

But Whitehall officials and international charities have said the Home Office has no incentive to reduce ODA spending because the money does not come out of its budgets.The scale of government aid spending on asylum hotels has meant huge cuts in UK support for humanitarian and development priorities across the world.

Those cuts have been exacerbated by the government's reductions to the overall ODA budget. In February, Sir Keir Starmer said he would cut aid spending from- a fall in absolute terms of about £14bn to some £9bn.Such was the scale of aid spending on asylum hotels in recent years that the previous Conservative government gave the Foreign Office an extra £2bn to shore up its humanitarian commitments overseas. But Labour has refused to match that commitment.

Gideon Rabinowitz, director of policy at the Bond network of development organisations, said: "Cutting the UK aid budget while using it to prop up Home Office costs is a reckless repeat of decisions taken by the previous Conservative government."Diverting £2.2bn of UK aid to cover asylum accommodation in the UK is unsustainable, poor value for money, and comes at the expense of vital development and humanitarian programmes tackling the root causes of poverty, conflict and displacement.

"It is essential that we support refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, but the government should not be robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Sarah Champion, chair of the International Development Committee, said the government was introducing "savage cuts" to its ODA spending, risking the UK's development priorities and international reputation, while "Home Office raids on the aid budget" had barely reduced."They've said it could be when he's one, it could be when he's five, it could be 10 years but knowing that we're going to outlive our child and knowing that his brothers and his sister may one day have to say goodbye to him is heart-breaking," said Amanda.

Amanda and Nick were told their other children - aged 10, eight and 4 - also had a 25% chance of having the mutated gene but tests showed this was not the case.When Jack first became unwell last September the family were in the middle of fully renovating their house.

Everything came to a standstill so the family home is a partial building site.Amanda has left her job in social services to take care of Jack full-time and Nick has been able to continue working but is still recovering from a stroke in July 2023 and heart surgery that followed in May last year.