The growing reliance on technology in many of the world’s ongoing conflicts is impacting heavily on the UK’s defence sector.
Advances in weaponry being deployed in war zones in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan – developed by market leaders in China, eastern Europe, the US, Germany and France as well as the UK – mean the number of jobs in the industry are falling sharply.
Highly skilled individuals find themselves without work or needing to retrain, which has a negative impact on the global economy.
A report published by the watchdog Nuclear Education Trust (Net) calls for the UK to adopt a similar approach to that of South Africa, Estonia, Italy and the US. It would set up a Defence Diversification Agency (DDA) to protect the rising number of UK employees losing their jobs as defence technology advances.
The research focuses on the risk to jobs in the event the Trident renewal programme is wound down after a change of government or the ratification of the UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. The UK, like other nuclear states, has so far failed to sign up to the 2017 treaty, which requires 50 signatories before coming into force.
Employment in the UK arms sector has been in decline for several decades, falling from 405,000 in 1980-81 to an estimated 142,000 in 2016.
Anti-nuclear campaigners CND suggest that 11,000 of the remaining industry jobs are within the Trident programme. Its replacement, voted for by parliament in 2016, is estimated to cost between £140bn and £205bn, with initial assessments suggesting it could create between 26,000 to 30,000 jobs by 2031. However there are uncertainties over its future in terms of affordability, technical feasibility and political commitment in the face of a possible change in government at the next general election or after Brexit.
Labour are among those calling for a DDA, and supporting the renewal of the Trident programme forms a key part of its foreign and defence manifesto pledge. However MP Fabian Hamilton, the shadow minister for peace and disarmament, said: “While it is not yet Labour party policy to scrap Trident, I’m committed, not only to transitioning away from nuclear weapons, but to protecting jobs at the same time.
“High-skilled jobs are good for our economy and, if we decide to transition away from Trident, defence diversification is the only way to ensure that the vital skills used in the development of nuclear weapons are not lost. A defence diversification strategy would go hand in hand with Labour’s plan to invest in our economy.”
Diversification of jobs in the arms manufacturing sector has been successful in a number of countries such as the US, Germany and Italy, where many jobs that would have been lost due to technological advances, automation and competition have been reallocated from the defence industry to civil production, the report says, detailing a number of successful case studies.
Defence workers may find themselves unemployed, needing to be retrained, or they may have to relocate to secure employment, the report suggests. Employers may find their physical assets such as production plants or facilities redundant and unsaleable. The aim of the agency would be to provide coordination, assistance and funding to save jobs that are at risk.
This would be the UK’s second attempt at a DDA. The previous agency, set up in 1999 under the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, oversaw technology transfer and the spin-off of intellectual property from arms production to civil products; however, it did not focus on the transferable skills of employees. Despite benefiting close to 2,300 companies, the agency was closed down in 2003.
“British jobs should not be reliant on customers who regularly commit war crimes with their products,” said MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, member of the committees on arms export controls. “They should be protected as much as possible from the growing tide of automation that has been hitting the arms manufacturing sector hard … We cannot stand by and do nothing.
“It is vital that we transform British manufacturing by diversifying British jobs away from the inherently unstable arms-export markets … Labour will properly resource a Defence Diversification Agency and learn from promising initiatives abroad to ensure that British engineers have decently paid and socially useful work.”