ARMS dealers lobbied ministers a whopping 19 times in just two months after Labour came to power, the Sunday National can reveal.
Weapons manufacturers launched a lobbying blitz on the new Labour Government after the election in July – meeting ministers a total of 12 times in that month alone.
The Prime Minister personally met with German armoured tanks manufacturer Rheinmetall in August and the following month, hosted a roundtable with firms such as Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems in the US.
There was a flurry of activity during the three days of the Farnborough International Airshow last summer, where ministers met with arms companies BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Leonardo and Rolls-Royce.
At the event, which gathers giants of the defence industry for an expo of new products, Department for Business and Trade minister Sarah Jones met with Barzan Holdings, the firm which supplies the Qatari military with kit and Lockheed Martin, which also had a “brush by” with transport minister Mike Kane.
Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds (above) also met with Rolls-Royce to discuss the Government’s industrial strategy and BAE Systems for talks on defence exports.
Also at Farnborough, Scottish Secretary Ian Murray met with Norwegian munitions firm Kongsberg to talk about defence.
The data, spanning July to September, was uncovered by Sunday National analysis of data available by Transparency International UK, which tracks government lobbying.
Earlier this year, the Prime Minister unveiled plans to boost defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027, with the aim of reaching 3% during the next parliament.
His decision to partially fund this by raiding the international aid budget sparked the resignation of Anneliese Dodds from government and unleashed a barrage of criticism from global development charities.
It echoes similar moves in the US, where Donald Trump has halted most foreign aid spending.
Trump’s demands that European countries increase defence spending and his humiliation of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy caused Western countries to scramble to embark on a major rearmament programme after they were faced with the prospect of America withdrawing support for the war against Russia.
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater (below) said: “Arms dealers aren’t spending so much time and energy lobbying the Labour Party because they enjoy the conversations, they’re doing it because they want to win favour and pick up some business.
“While ministers were greeting arms dealers, UK-made weapons were being used by Israeli forces to inflict a brutal humanitarian crisis on the people of Gaza – all with the support of the Labour Government.
“The arms companies have had far too loud a voice in the corridors of power for far too long while they have continued to put their profits ahead of human rights.”
Emily Apple, media co-ordinator at the pressure group Campaign Against Arms Trade, said the meetings showed “the unparalleled and deeply entrenched influence” the arms industry held over the UK Government.
She highlighted recent research by the pressure group which showed that BAE Systems held more meetings with ministers and prime ministers than any other company and which found that officials and politicians met with defence lobbyists 1.64 times per day, on average, between 2009 and 2019.
Apple added: “No industry should have this level of influence over government, especially one that deals in death and destruction. This level of influence is profoundly undemocratic and means that shareholder profits are protected at all costs – even if this means complicity in appalling war crimes.”
David Mackenzie, secretary of anti-war group Secure Scotland, said: “We should not be particularly surprised at Labour’s complex entanglements with the arms industry, given how puppy-eager they have been to signal their quasi-macho commitment to ‘peace through strength’.
“We should, however, be appalled at this further evidence of how far decision-making on ‘defence’ is removed from democratic control and public scrutiny.”
A spokesperson for Stop the War added: “It is clear Labour ministers continue to be complicit not only in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza but everywhere their chums in the defence industry peddle their wares for wars.
“The beneficiaries of war will always be the warmongers and the arms companies, whose profits are assured, never ordinary working people and the poorest in society hit hardest by the welfare cuts which will fund the ramping up of defence spending to further line the pockets of these firms and their shareholders.”
A UK Government spokesperson said: "As set out in the Plan for Change, national security is the first duty of the Government. As part of this, it is right that we're supporting and strengthening the defence industry – and engagement with them is an important part of that.
“We have committed to increase spending on defence to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027 and Scotland's defence sector received £2.14 billion in government spending last year, equating to about £390 per person, supporting approximately 25,600 jobs.”
