PM Cameron’s heavyweight government plus business trip to India went swimmingly, so we are to believe, despite that diplomatic faux pas about Pakistani support for terrorism and Indian discontent about proposed immigration quotas. One fortunate outcome for Mr Cameron was that both issues diverted attention from a highly contentious arms deal involving arms giant BAE.
Under the deal, 57 Hawk jets will be manufactured under licence in India with BAE’s Indian partner, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), with technical support from BAE. Roll-Royce also gets a slice of the deal as its jet engines will be used in production. The deal is supposedly worth £700 million to the UK.
I say supposedly because the arms business is rather different from selling widgets. It is dominated by a few giant international companies, with BAE Systems by far the largest in the UK. Today, despite its assiduous media management, BAE is as well known for its entanglement with the law as its manuifacturing capabilities.
Arms companies, and especially BAE, have extraordinary access to government decision making, both at the Ministry of Defence, and at No 10. Since 2008, this influence has been slightly lessoned with the removal of the government arms sales unit from the Ministry of Defence to UK Trade & Investment where it was reconstituted as the Defence & Security Organisation (UKTI DSO). There it continues its prolifigate ways, with 160 staff dedicated to the arms industry compared to just 142 staff for the other 34 industry sectors.
Arms companies also have a bevy of MPs prepared to speak for them in the House and in the media. Some represent constituencies where arms companies are located and present themselves as supporters of jobs which would be lost if the UK stopped arms exports. There are a few areas, notably around Preston, Hull and Yeovil, where arms exporters are large employers, but in most areas the numbers are neglible. Nationally only 0.2% of jobs are arms export jobs.
So what jobs will the India deal create? The answer is either none or very few. After all, the planes are being manufactured in India. The deal will supposedly “protect” around 200 jobs in BAE’s Brough plant, near Hull. For a £700 million deal that works out at £3.5 million per job. How can this be either economic or fair?
Will India benefit? No doubt the deal will bring some jobs to the assembly lines of HAL’s Bangalore plant but as a highly capital intensive industry, the numbers are limited to the already skilled and the multipler effects are low. India does desperately need more jobs, especially in smaller cities and rural areas, but the arms industry will not provide them.
Since 1947 India has been involved in four wars against Pakistan and armed conflict with China. India is also involved in internal conflicts, including Kashmir, and has a dubious record on human rights. How will building Hawk jets support peace efforts within India and the region? Will it not just further encourage an arms race with Pakistan, a country which, lacking India’s strong democratic tradions and institutions, is in an even more parlous situation.
The Liberal Democrats have tradionally been more critical than the other main parties on arms exports, whether on grounds of economics or ethics. Writing in the Daily Mail on 19 July 2009 Vince Cable said:… ” billions have been wasted on the Eurofighter – which was designed for the Cold War and is largely iirrelevant.” But just over a year later on 28 July he said: “I am pleased that the Indian Government is considering the Eurofighter Typhoon for its medium multi-role combat aircraft. This bid has the full backing of the UK Government.”
It is sad to see that, as a coalition partner, when it comes to selling weapons worldwide the Lib Dems appear to be equally in thrall to the supposed benefits brought by the arms industry. I look forward to hearing concerned Lib Dems speak up on these issues at the September Conference.
Kaye Stearman Media Co-ordinator at Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT)
‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email if you are interested in contributing.
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8 Comments
What a strange article with very confused logic. The author says that the deal is ‘supposedly’ worth £700m to the UK and then goes on the talk about how many jobs are being saved. She says :
“The deal will supposedly “protect” around 200 jobs in BAE’s Brough plant, near Hull. For a £700 million deal that works out at £3.5 million per job. How can this be either economic or fair?”
What does this mean? Does she think it is a public subsidy of £700m.
India is the worlds largest democracy, one of the fastest growing economies and a long standing ally. Why on earth should we not sell them fighters?
We should not just look at the profits, we should also consider how these weapons might be used.
Do we really want to intensify the stand off between India and Pakistan?
We are also scheduled to reduce aid to India because it is a rich country. In truth many regions are very poor. Any country that makes an arms deal with India is incentivising that country not to tackle their own poverty
‘Since 1947 India has been involved in four wars against Pakistan’….
In all of these four wars – Pakistan happened to be the aggressor and India was drawn onto to the battlefield to defend itself. Regarding internal conflict in Kashmir – it is a problem that has become extremely complex over the last 6 decades and is not easily solvable. The support structure provided by state agencies in Pakistan to promote terrorism in Kashmir certainly does not help the cause of peace.
UK faces a bleak economic situation and a £700m deal is hugely beneficial to the British economy. A democratic state such as India is a natural ally of the United Kingdom and a strategic partnership between the UK and India would be hugely beneficial to both side. A foreign policy based purely on the so called ‘ethical’ terms will only result in greater damage to Britain’s security and economic interests.
Geoff Payne – the ‘Hawk’ aircraft being sold to India is a ‘trainer’ aircraft and as the name suggests – it is essentially used to ‘train’ air force cadets in flying high altitude fighter jets. It is a loss for Britain if it doesn’t sell the trainer aircrafts to India as there are other competitors around the world who are vying for an order from India.
I have to agree with KS. India is not exactly the regional bully, Pakistan has a lot to answer for as well. Moreover India is the strongest democracy in the whole region – possibly mainland Asia. It’s not perfect, but then no country is. If we can’t sell to India then I don’t know who Kaye would suggest we sell aircraft to?
This is not a deal to help get India out of poverty with jobs, it’s a purely diplomatic/military matter. The Indian airforce needs new trainers, so we should offer them so they can train their pilots to be some of the best. India will always have an airforce, so it makes sense that if we’re to sell them anything it’s something to help them train. The lion’s share of arms procurement for any airforce is the fighter jets, not the trainers.
This benefits workers in Britain and helps to contain a rising China. What’s not to like?
There is an inherent hypocrisy in denouncing Western militaries and state-security apparatuses when protected by them: the greatest in the history of mankind. I never have heard CAAT activists adequately address this point.
The reader can tell that the journalism is not of prime importance at CAAT. First there are numerous unanswered questions… it is the responsibility of the author to tell the reader why summat is what it is, not to float a question as leave the reader to say “hmmmm”.
Then there is the sneering quotation marks associated with protecting jobs. People are employed in this industry, whether CAAT likes it or not, and such deals will safeguard their jobs. Perhaps the latterday Viktor Lazlos of bodies like CAAT should tell them that it’s debatable that they are provide for their families. How many jobs are “protected” by the self-perpetuating human rights industry whence comes CAAT?
Finally, there’s the unreferenced claim of India’s “dubious human rights record” (I don’t doubt there are dark corners, but it’s the author’s responsibility to explain this) followed by having-their-cake-and-eating-it with an admission that India has strong democratic traditions but this may push the less savory Pakistan (ain’t that what got Cameron’s motormouth into trouble?) into an arms race.
What to do, what to do? Maybe supply more weapons to India to achieve peace through superior firepower?
DISCLAIMER – I see the wisdom in restricting or halting arms supplies to certain States, but my objection to CAAT’s ethos is in its name. It campaigns against [all of] the arms trade.
I wouldn’t hold your breath. Their Party now is in Government, so can’t carry on faffing around with virtuous opposition.
This last statement is redolent with passive aggression. Who elected CAAT? No-one. Yet there’s the implication that LibDem members at the Conference – led by people who actually have been elected both internally and at the ballot box – should do CAAT’s biding.
Interesting that the author of the article has not bothered to respond to any of these points
Thanks for the interesting and varied comments on my posting. I will attempt to answer the main ones below:
Jobs in the UK – Arms exports create relatively few jobs, despite the high level of government support for the arms industry. The £700m Hawk jet deal will “protect” around 200 jobs in the UK. The reason I contend that this is neither economical or fair is that government support could go to other industries which create more jobs, while being useful and ethical – developing renewable energy technologies would be one example. I don’t see how protecting 200 jobs will help to save the UK from “a bleak economic situation” as KS contends.
Maybe SmCg and KS might be interested in the comments of a “real” journalist, Alan Beattie of the FT. In an article entitled “Promoting exports full of risk for world economy” on 21 August, he wrote:
“In the UK, the most persistent mendicants for public funds are the arms exporters, which have recently stepped up their campaign for defence contracts and other government support. BAE Systems, the flagship of the arms industry flotilla, currently has an unmissably large display advertisement flaunting the Union flag in London Underground’s Westminster station, presumably designed to beguile gullible passing MPs worried about British jobs. But we know where weaponry export promotion leads: to the grubby deals that sold material to Iraq in the 1980s, to the Malaysian Pergau dam scandal in 1991, where development and the environment were sacrificed for arms contracts, to the wasteful BAE Systems deal in 2001, which pushed a costly and pointless air traffic control system on Tanzania. Such support generally rests on the economic illiteracy of the “lump of labour fallacy”, which improbably assumes that the skilled workers employed under such contracts have absolutely no other options except unemployment. You can have as many arms export jobs as you are prepared to waste public money subsidising.”
Arms to India – Raj and others point out that, despite its faults, India is a democracy and an ally. I agree – I think there is a lot to admire in India, including its democratic institutions and popular movements. My point about the conflicts with Pakistan was not to go into the complexities of the origins or course of the conflicts, but to make the point that militarisation on all sides has been disastrous and has done nothing to help to bring a more peaceful resolution to the conflicts. In addition, it diverts spending on much needed public resources, such as health and education, which would benefit the poor majority in both countries. The internal conflicts within India are also varied and complex but they need dialogue and peaceful resolution, not military action.
Ethics verses economics – I don’t accept that you need to sacrifice one for the other. I think Alan Beattie’s quote shows the longer term consequences of unethical arms deals very clearly.
Debate at the LibDem conference – The Lib Dems have a proud tradition of caring about the ethics of arms exports – a tradition CAAT hoped they would carry on into government. Is it really too much to express a wish that this is one of the issues that will be discussed at Conference? .By the way, CAAT has democratic elections to its steering committee, which is responsible for overseeing its work.