NICOLA Sturgeon has promised to consider tightening up Scottish Enterprise’s procedures, after anger over the body’s decision to give one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers a generous grant.
The promise came in response to Patrick Harvie, who accused the SNP government of propping up the arms industry with public money.
During First Minister’s Questions, Harvie raised research revealing Scottish Enterprise help given to Raytheon, a multinational firm with a factory in Glenrothes.
Last year Human Rights Watch claimed the Paveway IV missiles – used by the Saudi forces throughout the bombing of Yemen – were made in the Scottish plant.
With 2015 sales worth $28 billion, the global firm is among the biggest arms companies in the world.
Around 700 people are employed at the Glenrothes factory.
Harvie called on Sturgeon to “reverse the Scottish Government’s support for the arms industry”.
The First Minister told the MSP that Scotland’s “enterprise and skills agencies do not provide funding for the manufacture of munitions – that is, weapons or ammunition particularly for military use.”
Any support given to Raytheon is “focused on projects for non-military uses and for business diversification”, she insisted, giving the example of laser guidance components being used in helicopters.
Harvie said the First Minister was using the “diversification” as a “cover for support to the arms industry”, and pointed out that in 2017, 94% of Raytheon’s total sales were arms sales, up from 92% a decade earlier.
“What we are seeing is not diversification but the opposite, and the support of the Scottish Government, through the account management that is delivered by Scottish Enterprise, is specifically to grow that business and access new markets.”
Harvie said there was now an “overwhelming case to withdraw the constant stream of support from the public purse for this company”.
Sturgeon said she remained open to “hearing concerns about this matter and to considering whether there are any changes that can be made to tighten up the procedures that Scottish Enterprise uses”.
She added: “However, I make no apology for our enterprise agencies trying to support our economy and jobs.”
More than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since 2015.
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