Tory former chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby has urged the Government to drop its commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on overseas development aid.
Lord Lawson told peers the UK already gave more in aid than any other country in the world except the United States.
And he protested that while all other public spending programmes were being frozen or cut back, the aid budget was "still roaring ahead" while in most other countries it was "slowing down".
Lord Lawson mocked ministers' plans to legislate for maintaining the commitment in perpetuity, saying they should instead abandon this "antique and thoroughly arbitrary target".
Peers were debating a report by the Lords economic affairs committee published earlier this year, which called on the coalition government to scrap its commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on aid in line with the UN target. The committee argued this prioritised spending over results and jeopardised the quality and effectiveness of aid programmes.
Lord Lawson, a member of the committee, branded as "pathetic" the Government's response to the report that meeting the target was a "solemn pledge" by all three political parties.
"In my rather long political experience when all three political parties are agreed on a policy it is nearly always mistaken - as it is in this case. The plain fact is that if the evidence shows that a policy is mistaken it should be abandoned."
Lord Lawson said there had been "serious doubts about the efficacy" of development aid, with concerns about fraud and corruption.
"The record of development aid, however well intentioned, is as disappointing as it is because it does not and cannot achieve the indispensable political and institutional requirement of a separation between the political and economic spheres in the recipient countries. Without this, development aid is futile. With it, development aid is unnecessary."
Lord Lawson added: "If we seriously wish to use taxpayers' money to help the people of the developing world, I believe the best thing we can do is probably to spend a fraction of what we are currently mis-spending on development aid on educating the future leaders of those countries in our best schools and universities."
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