General Council Statement - Military Spending
General Council Statement - Military Spending
The General Council recognises that UK military spending has increased by almost 20% over the past three years within an overall trend where it has reduced by more than half as a proportion of GDP since the mid[1]1980s. Much of the recent increase is accounted for by £7.1 billion of military assistance to Ukraine since March 2022. We support a genuine negotiated settlement to end Russian aggression towards Ukraine whilst recognizing that reducing the capacity for Ukraine to defend itself at this point will not aid the agreement of such a settlement. Russia is currently spending 30% of GDP on its invasion of Ukraine.
Above the recent increases, the General Council does not support further expansion in military spending, recognising that the UK already spends over 2.1% of GDP on defence, exceeding its NATO commitments.
We recognise that further increases in public spending on defence could be at the expense of spending on public services at a UK level with potential impacts in Scotland. We re-commit ourselves to supporting international policy positions which, if enacted in good faith, would see UK and world defence spending decrease in the medium to longer-term.
We also recognise the industrial importance of the defence sector to Scotland as a source of generally well-paid unionised jobs in an economy which has seen a catastrophic fall in manufacturing employment. Defence spending also entails high levels of domestic work as witnessed in the shipbuilding and aviation construction sectors. Our industrial focus should be on further increasing domestic production within pre-existing budgets.
The skills of workers employed in the defence sector are also crucial to achieving a Just Transition to net zero. We are aware that our governments are failing to deliver a Just Transition in energy and energy reliant sectors representing a threat to tens of thousands of decent jobs in the future. With defence spending reserved, the creation of a Scottish Defence Diversification Agency would require the commitment of over £2 billion in devolved Scottish public spending to compensate for lost defence jobs, equal to the entire Scottish Government budget for rail and bus services. We are already woefully failing to publicly fund our energy, heat, and transport transitions.
Alongside the £50 billion defence budget, the UK is the world’s seventh largest exporter of military equipment. In 2022 there was an increase in the value of Single Individual Export Licences, to £8.5 billion, almost 2 double the figure for 2021, the highest level on record and driven in part by the delivery of Eurofighter Typhoons to Qatar, along with substantial bomb and missile deliveries to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. We repeat our call on the UK Government to discontinue arms licenses for all sales to countries acting in breach of international law and/or where weaponry is used against civilian targets. This includes countries such as Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.
The General Council pledges to continue to be an educator for and a campaigner on peace issues in the run up to the general election and to pressurise the UK Government to cease arms exports to those guilty of war crimes.
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