Arms production & trade

SIPRI and CAAT release new report examining UK Government support for the arms industry and trade

A new report by SIPRI for the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) highlights the 'huge overall level of government support, protection and direct and indirect subsidy that the arms industry as a whole receives.' It says that arms export subsidies and support offered by the government of the United Kingdom are matters of industrial policy choice, 'rather than based on cost saving.' The report says that export subsidies are symptomatic of a desire to maintain the domestic arms industry, even if internal procurement is more expensive than opening up to international competition.

Arms production & trade

CAAT – Resources – Publications – Economics – The Globalisation of Arms Production and Trade: Implications for the UK Economy

It was no longer important. Instead ‘spin in’, the increasing need to use lobbying to influence domestic procurement through their links abroad, such as through the EU. Companies are also a range of subcontracting companies dependent on them, many of these not obviously producers of military goods, as there is considerable dependence on the rest of the arms trade in future and make it more difficult to control