West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin has welcomed further cash to help the country to level-up as the Government continues its fight against Covid-19.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak set out his year-long spending plan which sets out billions of pounds to continue managing the coronavirus crisis while also investing in the UK’s recovery.

The statement made to the House of Commons today set out plans to spend £18billion on mass testing and £3 billion to support the NHS. West Midlands schools will receive a year-on-year funding increase of over three per cent and the region will also benefit from £5.2 billion for flood defences and 5 new hospitals.

But Harriett criticised the decision to review the international aid spending commitment, reducing it to 0.5 per cent of the UK’s Gross Domestic Product.

Harriett said: “The Chancellor has a mammoth task dealing with the huge fiscal pressures resulting from a global pandemic, whilst fulfilling our pledges to support the NHS, to ensure the right funding for our schools and to invest in infrastructure so the country can build back better.

“But a year and a day from the launch of the Conservative manifesto upon which I was re-elected, I am ashamed that the one manifesto commitment the Government has chosen to abandon is the international aid commitment.

“The best thing for our economy, our health and the UK’s soft power would be to give every poor country access to the Oxford vaccine once it has completed its UK rollout. As someone who has seen how important our international aid can be to countries all over the worl