In a healthy democracy like ours organisations like "Campaign Against Arms Trade" have the right to scrutinise government over their export policies. We in Parliament however have not done enough to scrutinise organizations like this one and seem to have taken their objectives for granted with very little probing. With this in mind I have arranged for a representative of this organisation to meet with me today to discuss their objectives and to hear some of my concerns about their actions.
Of course we are all united in our opposition to the exports of weapons of any kind to despotic regimes that brutalise their own people. Concerns would also be shared if British firms were exporting to very poor neighbouring countries like Ethiopia and Eritrea engaged in a very costly border dispute. As a member of the International Development Select committee I have concerns about some of the poorest countries spending vast sums on arms which in many cases they can ill afford.
There is however a huge difference in exporting weapons to a regime like Zimbabwe where the President is using foreign imported weapons to suppress his people and exporting tanks and aircraft to a stable democracy like the Czech Republic. Many countries that have recently joined NATO for the mutual security this organisations provides need to purchase new equipment to start to improve standards up to NATO levels. Does the Campaign Against Arms Trade object to such exports as well to fellow NATO partners? This is one question I will be putting to them today.
As Chairman of the All Party Group for Saudi Arabia I have become horrified at the actions of this organisation and deeply worried about the impact their campaigning is having on this important British Exports Industry which provides thousands of jobs throughout the UK and is a very important earner of foreign currency for our country. They have recently successfully taken the government to Court over a major arms trade deal with Saudi Arabia and the consequences for our relations with this important ally are serious.Saudi of course has purchased billions of pounds of British equipment and we train many of their pilots. This stable country has not used any British made planes to attack other countries to my knowledge and has used British arms equipment for security and defence capabilities.
Lets not forget that they have a very unstable neighbour in the shape of Iran which they need to protect themselves from and having a strong military locker of British made planes and tanks is a good insurance policy against any such aggression. The most important thing to remember is that if CAT succeeded in stopping all British arms exports and destroying thousands of jobs in the process what would be the main outcome? Of course we all know that the void would be instantly filled by far less ethical arms producers like North Korea, China and Russia. These countries would not even dream of putting some of the safeguards into place that we in Britain do and the world would be a far more dangerous place. Campaign Against Arms Trade needs to be challenged and I am looking forward to taking up that challenge.
