Arms Industry Conversion To Civilian Manufacturing

EDM number 806 in 1993-94, proposed by Lynne Jones on 10/03/1994.

That this House welcomes the views expressed by the honourable Member for Buckingham in his article in the Daily Telegraph on 1st March; believes that the proportion of the United Kingdom's manufacturing base formed by arms manufacture is worringly large, that the opportunity cost to the civilian economy of the arms industry is high, and that while a huge percentage of the national research effort still goes on weaponry, and highly skilled technicians are deployed in the defence industry, the chances of rivalling the Japanese or the Germans in civilian exports are depleted at a time when vast new markets are opening in the East; and calls on the President of the Board of Trade to appoint a working party to look strategically at the future of the arms trade and its place in the United Kingdom economy.

This motion has been signed by a total of 58 MPs.