Editing Barbara Castle (section)

====Minister for Overseas Development, 1964–1965====
[[File:Mr John Tembo, Malawian Minister of Finance and Mrs Barbara Castle, British Minister of Overseas Development.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Castle as Minister for Overseas Development meeting [[John Tembo]], [[Malawi]] Minister of Finance, 1965]]
Labour returned to government under [[Harold Wilson]] in October 1964 following a [[1964 United Kingdom general election|general election]], defeating [[Alec Douglas-Home]]'s Conservative government by winning a slim majority of four seats, thus ending 13 years of successive Conservative governments. Wilson had selected his core Cabinet four months prior to the election;{{sfnp|Martineau|2000|p=161}} Castle knew Wilson intended to place her within his Cabinet, which would make her the fourth woman in British history ever to hold position in a Cabinet, after [[Margaret Bondfield]], [[Ellen Wilkinson]] and [[Florence Horsbrugh]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m04c.pdf|title=Women in the House of Commons House of Commons: Information Office Factsheet M4|chapter=Appendix C: Women MPs who have held Ministerial office|access-date=30 December 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101108070346/http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m04c.pdf|archive-date=8 November 2010|url-status=live}}</ref>

Castle entered the Cabinet as the first [[Minister for Overseas Development]], a newly created ministry for which she, alongside the [[Fabian Society]], had drawn up the plans.{{sfnp|Martineau|2000|p=161}} For the previous year she had acted as the opposition spokeswoman on overseas development.{{sfnp|Martineau|2000|p=161}} Castle's plans were extensive, though the ministry's budget was modest.{{sfnp|Martineau|2000|p=163}} She set about trying to divert powers from other departments related to overseas aid, including the [[Foreign Office]] and [[HM Treasury|the Treasury]]. She was only partially successful in her aims and provoked an internal Whitehall dispute in the process.{{sfnp|Mitchell|Wienir|1997|p=87}}

In June 1965 Castle announced interest-free aid loans would be available to certain (not exclusively [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]]) countries.{{sfnp|Perkins|2003|p=197}} She had previously criticised the Conservative government for granting loans that only waived interest for up to the first seven years, which she considered to be counter-productive.{{sfnp|Martineau|2000|p=175}}

In August, Castle published the government [[white paper]] ''Overseas Development: The Work of a New Ministry''.{{sfnp|Martineau|2000|p=178}} The financial commitments of the ministry were omitted from the report, after a protracted clash between Castle and her cabinet colleagues [[James Callaghan]] ([[Chancellor of the Exchequer]]) and [[George Brown, Baron George-Brown|George Brown]] ([[Secretary of State for Economic Affairs]]). Labour had made a [[manifesto]] promise to increase aid spending to 1% of [[gross national product]], almost double Conservative spending.{{sfnp|Perkins|2003|pp=197–198}} However, the national economy was unstable, public resentment towards the Commonwealth was growing due to immigration, and within Cabinet aid was viewed with either indifference or contempt.{{sfnp|Martineau|2000|p=175}} Castle grappled with Callaghan and Brown over the department's budgetary allocation; they reached a compromise following Wilson's intervention,{{sfnp|Martineau|2000|p=177}} but the sum only amounted to a small increase in spending.{{sfnp|Perkins|2003|pp=199}}