One of the few ways the Government and the arms companies can rally public support for the arms trade is to claim that it keeps people in work (see arms trade jobs pages) and helps the UK economy.
However, UK government support for the arms trade includes subsidies to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds, which means that far from benefiting financially from the arms trade, the UK taxpayer is funding it.
The exact amount of the subsidy is difficult to gauge, due to the lack of official information as well as debates around methodologies, but CAAT's 2004 estimate was that the government subsidy for arms exports totalled around £900 million. This support includes taxpayer research and development funding, and export promotion assistance through UK Trade & Investment and export credits.
Further Reading
Escaping the Subsidy Trap: Why Arms Exports are bad for Britain
BASIC, Oxford Research Group & Saferworld, 2004
PDF (237k)
Arms Export Subsidies
CAAT factsheet, 2004
The Economic Costs and Benefits of UK Defence Exports
M. Chalmers, N.V. Davies, K. Hartley and C. Wilkinson, University of York, November 2001
PDF (578k)
The Subsidy Trap
Oxford Research Group & Saferworld, 2001
PDF (1,099k)
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