Merging DFID and the Foreign Office could prove a fatal distraction and reduce the UK's influence

Former trade secretary Liam Fox is right to say that the government should recalibrate and reinvigorate the UK’s global presence after we leave the EU at the end of this month. But suggesting folding the Department of International Development (DFID) into the Foreign Office, as he and other politicians have urged, would be counterproductive and risks undermining these efforts.

Either scrapping DFID, or bringing it directly under the Foreign Office’s oversight, would weaken accountability, confuse operational decisions and distract the Foreign Secretary when their attention is urgently needed elsewhere. The Government should think again and avoid a course of action that could weaken our global influence.

The crisis between Iran and the United States creates myriad diplomatic challenges that will require the Foreign Office to negotiate safe passage through troubled waters. This is on top of other issues they are already occupied with, foremost being Britain’s departure from the EU.

At the same time, there are other urgent priorities that will determine Britain’s relationship with the world around us – including climate change, increasingly complex security threats, ending extreme poverty, preventing pandemic disease and responding to humanitarian crises, which all demand yet more of the Government’s time and attention.

How we respond to these challenges will shape Britain’s impact and influence in the world in the new decade and beyond. Key to this is recognising that each will require specific skills, expertise, and experience – delivered by individuals with clear focus on the task in hand.

The Prime Minister is right to want a smaller and more effective Cabinet.  But that should be done by reducing the number of ministers attending Cabinet, not by stifling the key voice of our soft power.

Thanks to our agile and effective diplomatic service, our globally respected armed forces and DFID, the world’s pre-eminent development agency, we project our influence around the world through shrewd use of these ‘3Ds’ – defence, diplomacy and development. To diminish any of these would leave the UK’s foreign policy unbalanced.

Attempting to merge any of these complementary roles risks undermining both our development work and our diplomatic efforts, and will have an adverse impact on our armed forces and national security. The good DFID does in some of the world’s toughest places, with its lauded approach to partnerships and transparency, is in part maintained through an individual at the top table responsible for overseeing these efforts.

The impact our diplomats have is due to their ability to concentrate on the task in hand, focusing on negotiations with expert knowledge of the subject and actors involved.

Adding to the workload of the Foreign Secretary is unlikely to have a positive effect, hampering both our diplomatic and development efforts. Consider the idea that during a tense round of negotiations at the UN Security Council, competing for their attention is an urgent decision to deploy health workers in response to an Ebola outbreak. To deal effectively with the concomitant crises requires more than one pair of hands.

Of course, these two ministers and their respective departments can and should do more to collaborate. But decisions on policy priorities should be the preserve of the National Security Council, not a single minister with sometimes competing priorities and an unmanageable workload. In executing NSC directed strategy, both departments can then focus on what they each do best. Where wider issues such as migration or the environment are concerned, other Cabinet Committees may be more appropriate.

The continuing crisis in the Middle East, with its potential for conflict, terrorism, migration and environmental damage, brings into sharp relief the need for consistent balanced foreign policy and its innovative agile execution. Three departments focusing with great expertise on what each do best are better than two. This is especially so today given the scale and complexity of DFID’s responsibilities.

A strong and independent Britain will need strong institutions to help us forge our way outside of the EU. DFID is among our strongest.  It is the envy of our competitors. It has the capacity to go on changing the world for the better – and that means better for our own security, our trade and our borders.

Such institutions are hard to build.  As the Government navigates our post-EU future it should consider carefully whether this is the time to reduce the influence and effectiveness of one of them.

• General The Lord Richards was Chief of Defence Staff from 2010-2013; Sir John Vereker was the founding Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development, from 1997 to 2002; Michael Jay, Lord Jay of Ewelme, previously served as Ambassador to France and was Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

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