UK using more of its aid budget to house refugees than most donors in OECD

The Bibby Stockholm barge, which the Home Office has announced it will lease to house asylum seekers in the UK. Photograph: Getty Images

The UK is spending proportionately more of its overseas aid budget on housing refugees than most other major aid donors, new figures from the OECD show.

The figures, published on Wednesday, show that the only two countries spending more than the UK in absolute terms on housing refugees in their home countries are Germany and the US, but their total aid budgets are much larger than the UK.