The Chancellor has appeared to quote a famous Bible verse while defending the government's decision to remove the target of giving away 0.7 per cent of gross national income for overseas aid.

The commitment, made in the Conservative Party manifesto, will be removed following a vote in the House of Commons.

The reduction to 0.5 per cent means more than £10 billion will be spent on aid this year, around £4.4 billion less than if the original commitment had been kept.

The government says the financial cost of the pandemic is to blame.

There's been widespread criticism of the move. Christian Aid referred to the vote as the UK turning its back on the poorest and most vulnerable, while former Prime Minister Theresa May warned that some of the world's poorest will due as a result.

Defending the move in Parliament on Tuesday, Rishi Sunak said: "There is no question of our commitment to overseas aid. The only question is when we return to the 0.7 per cent target. 

"The motion before the house makes clear we will do so once two clear objective targets have been met.... I know a deep sense of conscience underpins the view that the amount we spent on overseas aid is a moral issue. 

"Many in this house will know the words 'charity is patient is kind.' I think of those words and I share that sense of conscience. That is why we are maintaining the target, not abolishing it."

The famous verse from the Paul's letter to the Corinthians in the New Testament reads 'Love is patient, love is kind'. The King James Version reads 'Charity suffereth long, and is kind."