Douglas Carswell's Blog

Beware the defence contractors

My beef with big defence contractors is not that they sell military kit abroad. Nor even that they sometimes appear to have hijacked British foreign policy towards certain states in the interests of their business deals.   

It is their influence within Whitehall that seems so malign.

Britain’s defence budget is still the fourth largest in the world. Yet it has been spent appallingly badly for years. Why? One of the key reasons is that it is so often spent in the interests of large defence contractors - rather than our armed forces. 

Helicopters have been bought for two or three times what they could have cost. Contracts for UAV drones have gone to certain suppliers, when tried and tested alternatives could have been bought from established rivals. Mega contracts have been signed off without allowing properly competitive bidding.

Realpolitik, as much as any ethical considerations, mean that the Coalition should urgently shut the revolving door between big contractors and big government – and throw open the business of defence to choice, competition and transparency.

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