Today’s announcement by the British government of £250 million in “Defence Growth Deals” as part of Britain’s Defence Industrial Strategy, is presented as a way to boost jobs and improve local economies and ‘opportunities’ for working families. But in reality, it will push communities into further deprivation, funnel critical funds away from jobs-rich areas like health, and create greater international instability.
To showcase this military spending boost, the government is using ‘Team Barrow’ as a role model for local economic growth. Barrow-in-Furness, a town whose economy is dominated by the BAE Shipyard, is where the next generation of Britain’s nuclear submarines are being build. But the grim reality shows how the dominance of the military industry goes hand-in-hand with social deprivation: the town ranks within the 10% most deprived areas in England. Meanwhile, thousands of iodine tablets are regularly distributed used to nurseries and care homes.
One of the communities included in today’s announcement to be receiving the ‘defence growth’ funding is Devonport, Plymouth, home to the nuclear dockyard owned and operated by arms company Babcock. Devonport is among one of the most deprived communities in Britain. According to the Public Health Service, Devonport’s local index of social deprivation is 44, twice the annual average. Child poverty rates are over 35% in some wards. In addition to the deprivation, Devonport residents also must contend with radioactive leaks from the fleet of ageing nuclear submarines waiting to be decommissioned.
While Babcock’s annual turnover is £4.5 billion, public services in Plymouth are close to collapse. Plymouth’s regional hospital is now making cuts to the 11,000 staff, whilst the University is in financial crisis, and making 200 redundancies.
And the jobs boost that the government is promoting is tiny in comparison to the huge levels of public funds being spent. According to the ADS, the aerospace, defence and space trade body, increasing military spending by £17 billion to 3% of GDP would add 50,000 jobs to a sector that already employs 180,000. That’s £346,000 per job! Obviously, people aren’t getting paid such huge salaries. So, this means that billions of pounds of public money is going directly into the profits of arms companies and their shareholders. In contrast, TFL procurement between 2023-2024 created 50,750 direct jobs at a cost of just £5.95 billion.
We need an open and democratic debate to expose the hard economic reality behind the government’s obscene levels of military spending. This week, the TUC has the opportunity to send a strong message that this government is going in the wrong direction if it really wants to kick start the economy and create the hundreds of thousands of jobs we need.
CND’s fringe meeting ‘peace is trade union business’ takes place at TUC conference tonight at 5.45pm. Speakers include Jess Barnard from Unite, Micaela Tracey-Ramos, Unison NEC, Alex Gordon RMT, CND General Secretary, Sophie Bolt and chaired by Professor Karen Bell, editor of the Alternative Defence Review.
CND is urging all TUC delegates to vote for Motion P37 ‘Wages not Weapons’, submitted by UCU.
Image credit:Keir Starmer Twitter/ X