MYTHS ABOUT THE ARMS INDUSTRY

 

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The arms industry is good for national security

You don’t need to be an investigative journalist to work out where Saddam Hussein bought his weapons (see Times Online "How US helped Iraq build deadly arsenal"). There is an incredibly worrying tendency of old allies turning into military despots and many examples of US weapons being used against US troops.

However, this aside, most of the weapons and components made by British arms manufacturers are largely made for export and are totally inappropriate for our own military.   In a recent survey by the Oxford Research Group and Saferworld, entitled Escaping the Subsidy Trap, it was found that through selling weapons in a global market, domestic procurement was actually made more expensive. An example of this is the BAE-India Hawk jet deal in 2003, which ended up costing the UK taxpayer £1bn.  The Campaign Against the Arms Trade estimates that the direct distortion of MoD procurement choices costs the British taxpayer £100 million a year.

By selling weapons to foreign militaries we are not only arming up potential enemies but also making unsuitable and over-priced weaponry for our own armed forces.

           

The arms industry is good for employment

Because of arms industry subsidies, each job in the arms industry actually costs the UK taxpayer around £8,500 a year. The Oxford Research Group show that jobs relating to arms exports constitute only 0.25% of the national labour force and far from providing jobs it diverts skilled workers and investment away from more effective job-creating activity in the civil economy.

See CAAT’s report ‘The Employment Consequences of a Ban on Arms Exports’

 

The arms industry is good for the economy

The Government states that arms exports contribute significantly to the balance of payments and thus benefit the wider economy.

 The report reveals:

Defence exports' share of total UK exports has consistently reduced over recent years; to the point where in 2002, the gross UK arms exports revenue amounted to only 1.5 percent (£4,120m) of total UK exports.

A number of academics and MoD’s own economists have concluded that the economic benefits of arms exports are insignificant and that the “balance of argument about defence exports should depend mainly on non-economic consideration”.