Meeting of the Parliament 18 June 2025
I will take interventions during my closing speech.
The Scottish Government offered to review Scottish Enterprise’s human rights checks. While that has been going on, 10,000 more people have been killed in Gaza. The Scottish Government needs to urgently report on that review and provide Scottish Enterprise with a clear direction on the use of public funds, to ensure that Scotland meets its international obligations.
Many of these companies, which supposedly need Government support, are reporting huge profits, with BAE Systems reporting £3 billion-worth of profits last year alone. It is not at all clear that the megacorporations that rake in that kind of profit need our public money. BAE Systems, Raytheon and Leonardo have all received grants from Scottish Enterprise. BAE Systems is already the biggest arms company in Europe, and Raytheon is the second biggest in the world.
Every pound of public money needs to be spent carefully to ensure the maximum return on that investment. We need to make sure that public money goes to building wealth in Scotland and tackling our biggest challenges: stopping the climate catastrophe and eliminating child poverty. We need to make sure that it does not go into the pockets of multinational megacorporation arms dealers—I cannot believe that I have to say that.
Scottish public money would be better spent on supporting small businesses, co-operative businesses, social enterprises and rural businesses. Scotland’s small clean energy, nature restoration and organic food businesses would have made good use of that money, not to mention our NHS, trains and ferries.
Every pound of public money that is spent on the arms industry is a pound that is spent on misery, death and suffering. Scotland deserves better.
I move amendment S6M-17981.2, to leave out from “recognises” to end and insert:
“notes with concern that, despite the Scottish Government’s policy that public funds to the defence industry should focus on diversification, at least £8 million of Scottish Enterprise grants have been awarded to companies involved in arms dealing and manufacturing since 2019; further notes that a number of these businesses have directly supplied weapons and military equipment to Israel during its assault on Gaza; understands that, despite this, still no company has failed Scottish Enterprise human rights due diligence checks, and calls, therefore, on the Scottish Government to urgently report on its promised review of Scottish Enterprise’s human rights checks before the summer recess and to provide Scottish Enterprise with a clear direction on the use of public funds to ensure that Scotland meets its international obligations.”
16:24Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.