Scotland’s defence industry is losing access to research and development funding as a result of Scottish Government policy linked to the conflict in Gaza, with a senior industry figure telling the Scottish Affairs Committee that around GBP 22 million of Scottish Enterprise funding since 2007 has been frozen and that there is no clear route to restoring it.
Mark Stead, Senior Vice President for Radar and Advanced Targeting at Leonardo, told the committee on Wednesday that the funding moratorium was creating a gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK in access to defence R&D support, saying that “there is a difference south of the border and north of the border in access to that kind of funding.”
Stead said Leonardo’s Edinburgh business had historically received around £22 million through Scottish Enterprise since 2007, generating significant leverage, adding that “we typically add about £4.50 for every £1 invested with us from Scottish Enterprise, so the leverage of that Government investment is really significant, in terms of what we bring and the private sector investment over and above that.” He said that R&D investment led directly to new products, new exports, new jobs and the sustainment of existing ones.
Asked whether the policy might be lifted, Stead said implementation guidance for the moratorium had now been made available but that the off-ramp remained unclear, telling the committee that “it is subject to review on a periodic basis, but as of right now it is not clear what the off-ramp will be.”
The R&D funding freeze is not the only area where the committee heard about divergence between Scottish Government policy and the needs of the defence industry. Stead also described being blocked from advertising on Edinburgh trams a year ago, saying the council removed the advertising because Leonardo was part of the defence industry, and said the company had experienced five or six blockade protests where “the police will prioritise keeping the peace over enabling the opening for 3,000 people to go to work to support critical operations right now.” He said the industry had “lost the recipe” on national resilience and that the time to change that was now.
The committee also heard that the apprenticeship levy, while UK-wide, operates differently in Scotland in that employers cannot access it directly as they can in England, with Barnett consequentials controlled by the Scottish Government which does not routinely allocate them back into the defence industry. Stead said that morally the levy should “return directly that value back to growing the next wave of those skills” and that it “should be honoured through whatever mechanisms necessary.”
When asked directly by Lib Dem MP Angus MacDonald whether the Scottish Government was hostile to the defence sector, Babcock’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer John Howie said the relationship had improved following the change in leadership at Holyrood and that common ground had been found around skills and economic impact, saying “if you don’t get too hung up on some of the ideologies, we can all accept that generating lots of highly skilled jobs that impact on the economy has to be in everyone’s best interests.”
But he added that the two potential Defence Technical Excellence Colleges planned for Scotland, one in the east and one in the west, remained on hold pending Scottish Government match funding and elections at Holyrood, while five equivalent colleges had already been announced for England and one for Wales, saying “I guess we all just keep our fingers crossed that once the Scottish Government elections are out of the way, something can be fixed between Westminster and Holyrood.”
Image © User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons
I always smile when I think about the Scottish Parliament Building.
Wasn’t It over £400,000,000 to build and costs £4,000,000 per year to maintain ?
I know £4,000,000 a year sounds a lot (and it is), but if you compare it to the current costs to maintain the Palace of Westminster (£1.5 million per week) it actually looks reasonable.
Personally I care not one jot about either, they are both a total waste of hard working peoples money.
Completely agree..
It also embedded privilege and the idea of separation..
Personally I would have government run out of very bland normal buildings.. I would have all the MPs put up in essentially government run staff accommodation ( 1 room, bed and desk with shared toilet and kitchen) that they contribute to, when they were in Westminster away from home.. no second home in London paid on the taxpayers pound…
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As a Scot , the parliament building is an utter embarrassment and the only building I know that looks worse to the naked eye , than it does in pictures.
It was an utter project management disaster, the architect was allowed to incorporate every utterly insane idea that popped into his mind. No two offices or Pods as they are called are the same size necessitating bespoke furniture for every one. The wood across the windows has to be hand carved so it looks natural, and needs regular replacement.
Don’t get me started on what goes on inside.
It beggars belief that It was ever built at all.
I guess that Sheeple need a place to worship their masters.
There are several historic building in Edinburgh that could have been repurposed to house the Parliament . Regrettably I cannot pin this one on the SNP. This was John Smith’s vision , a man I greatly respected and was taken far too early but this was a catastrophic mis step on his part.
In all fairness to John Smith he wasn’t a project manager!
True, but he was an very intelligent man and should have known he should have.
Gotta save some money to pay for as many indyrefs as it takes until the nationalists get the answer they want.
Absolutely , they would have them annually if they could.
And if they had a yes for independence they’d use all the arguments they currently decry and call undemocratic to never let anyone vote on it again
Indyref 2 will make Indyref 1 look like a garden party in comparison. Can Scotland be an independent country absolutely but the vision of sunny uplands with the Haggis playing in the heather is decades away at best and masks the decades of hard graft and austerity it will take to get there and it is no way certain we ever will. I give it six month a year tops before the Indy fanatics start crying “ this is not the independence I voted for”
I’d argue it has nothing to do with independence. If you want to immediately sign up for the EU that hardly smacks of an independent country. ‘Call it for what it is, we don’t like the English, and want to leave’ I’d rather an honest opinion like that
The “ Scot’s” who take that anti English view are not patriotic Scot’s and have no idea of Scotland or the U.K. shared history. They call the Union Jack the butchers apron while ignoring that Glasgow and Dundee were built with Slave related money. The Clyde ship building exploded supporting the US confederacy. The crap about the English suppressing the Scot’s, when the real enemy of the Scottish people were the lairds. Bonnie Prince Charlie was French, he didn’t speak Scot’s he was born in Scotland before being whisked away to France.
William Wallace was hung drawn and quartered for sheep stealing.
Am I proud of my country absolutely but our history is as stained as England and like it or not , we need each other.
Yep.. and in the end after all the blood and fighting between the two nations.. it was a voluntary joining for mutual benefit.. no conquest or forced issues, just a reality that a single cohesive unit on one island is more secure and prosperous than two at each other’s throats.
Devolution was one of the dumbest things Tony Blair ever pushed
Gordon Brown surely?
“implementation guidance for the moratorium had now been made available but that the off-ramp remained unclear”
Don’t you just love the modern world? Everything, including the way articles are written, is complicated for the sake of complication. The above sentence reads like some middle manager’s motivating speech that no-one listens to or understands.
Mate I hate the “modern” world. A ramp is where aircraft sit. A moratorium was Nato being united against communism, and tooled up to deal with it. Now? We have narcissists like Trump, left wingers infiltrating every aspect of life and too many minority interest groups influencing social and national policies via politicians mired in corrupt self interests.
Time to dump the union, or abolish devolution. In the latter case Scotland, already a basket case, will become like Cuba.
Got that the wrong way round soz….
Devolution has been a disaster. Here in Wales we’ve been stuck with the socialists for 27 years now. In that time our two biggest devolved areas, NHS and Education, have totally gone to shit. Roll on May 7th.
So move all UK defence spending out of Scotland, even the nuclear submarine base.
That isn’t simple in the entire U.K. there is nowhere that has the attributes than the Northern Clyde Lochs, which is why the USN based theirs at Holy Loch. Deep water, superb access to the Atlantic, Granite Mountains to store weapons in and as it’s sparsely populated with limited access it’s very easy to defend or isolate.
Besides the above it would cost Billions to reproduce the facilities that are there.
This was all looked at in great detail pre 2014 referendum and options were assessed, best one was Milford Haven which has its own issues due to the Oil terminal, followed by Falmouth. Portsmouth and Plymouth were discounted even as a short term stop gap, Gibralter is in the wrong place and has the Spanish issue. Believe it or not their best idea was to bug out to Kings Bay in Georgia USA and build a new facility at either Milford Haven or Falmouth.
Frankly I would happpily see the weapons stored on the submarines that need them, a dozen more submarines built so we can have a good number at sea at all times, including off washington dc, and them repaired at plymouth or portsmouth as we used to do
That’s an interesting thought. Look more at the French model.. where the warheads they have are essentially pretty much all deployed unless they are being fiddled with.
“the police will prioritise keeping the peace over enabling the opening for 3,000 people to go to work to support critical operations right now.”
This is the giant damage universities and journalism makes. UK is turning into a basket case.
Straight from the SNP web page:…
What role does the defence industry play in Scotland’s economy?
Scotland can boast of being a world class defence manufacturer with Scotland’s engineers, shipbuilders, and businesses cementing Scotland as an impressive destination for international defence investment and recognition.
This renowned expertise will be supported by the SNP as a crucial component of building an independent nation with its own industrial defence strategy.
The Scottish shipbuilding industry has proven, once again, that it is unmatched in its skill by attracting a £10bn deal from Norway to build their Royal Naval Fleet. This has secured thousands of jobs in Glasgow and is just one example of Scottish excellence.
The SNP government has also invested £9.2mn into a BAE skills academy which will boost the local economy by £1.1bn over 10 years.
We are also committed to fostering the success of the small and medium enterprises which keep our defence industry thriving, and to supporting defence jobs and businesses in Scotland.
A defence strategy which matches the needs and threats of our own nation, and where we can actively contribute to the needs and security of our allies, is a defence priority for the SNP.
Believe that if you can……
Other than maybe spending £9.2m SNP have done zero and even the £9.2m had to be extracted from them.
Totally. No interest in Defense or wider industrial capability if defence is associated with that industry.
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I am likely naive but to be honest I don’t understand the SNP’s “motivation”. Are they anti-war, anti-UK, anti-spending or anti-reality? What do they envision for Scotland? Can someone explain…Danielle M?