THE SCOTTISH Government has been urged to provide details after pledging to review its human rights checks on arms companies getting state support.
Last month, The Scottish Greens forced a vote in Holyrood calling for such funding to be banned. While their motion failed, the SNP committed to looking at "due diligence" procedures around state-support for arms companies.
Scottish Enterprise has given £8 million to 13 companies involved in weapons manufacturing since 2019, leading to a barrage of criticism – although the Scottish Government has always maintained that the funding doesn’t go directly to the production of munitions and insisted that the “due diligence” checks are thorough.
But that has been called into question given that, of the 199 human rights checks between 2021 and 2023, no firm has ever failed – leading to claims the system “isn’t fit for purpose”.
Now, Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater has written to the Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes for more details on the review – including a timeline and whether it will be undertaken by an independent body.
"If the new system of human rights check is to be any more robust than what has become before then it needs to have teeth,” she told The National.
"The fact that companies who routinely arm some of the world's worst human rights abusers are able to get funding is a sign that the current checks are meaningless.”
Slater added: "Public money needs to be spent on the public good and on building the kind of Scotland we can be proud of.
"The SNP needs to lay out a timeline, a process and the criteria it will be applying to ensure that it is only supporting companies and industries that are contributing to a positive future and not those that are fuelling conflict."
The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.
The full letter to Kate Forbes is below:
Dear DFM Kate Forbes,
Thank you for your contribution to the Scottish Green Party’s Opposition Business debate on Scottish Enterprise Funding for Arms Companies.
We are disappointed that the Scottish Government did not support our motion which called for the immediate halt to all public funding to businesses who have directly supplied weapons and equipment to Israel during its assault on Gaza.
We welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has agreed to review Scottish Enterprise’s human rights due diligence process to ensure it is fit for purpose. We hope that this review is the first step in the Scottish Government ending all public grants to companies complicit in the arms trade with Countries who are committing war crimes.
The Scottish Greens fought hard for the introduction of human rights checks on all companies receiving public grants back in 2019. Yet, despite the fact that companies funded by Scottish Enterprise have sold arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia, no company has ever failed one of these checks. We do not believe that companies who are arming genocide would pass any human rights check that is worthy of the name.
Will the Scottish Government set out a clear timeline for this review, the proposed terms of reference and confirm that any review is led by an independent body?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Many thanks, Lorna Slater MSP
