Oceans of Work Arms Conversion Revisited Published by the British American This report has been written by Dr. Security Information Council Steven Schofield, a BASIC Consultant. BASIC in the UK is a registered charity no. Dr Schofield’s doctorate at Bradford 1001081. University was on arms conversion and BASIC in the US is a non-profit organization he was the co-founder of the Project on constituted under Section 501(c)(3) of the US Demilitarisation. He was the author of Internal Revenue Service Code the first Oceans of Work report BASIC Research Report 2007.1 - January 2007 published by the Barrow Alternative Employment Committee in 1987. He has BASIC subsequently published widely on For 20 years, BASIC has worked as an military procurement, disarmament, independent research and advocacy industrial and technology policy and organisation. Our research is respected economic regeneration. He works as a and trusted, and widely used by many freelance researcher. Contact details – other organisations and individuals. We [email protected] focus on transatlantic security and arms Acknowledgements control issues as a means of creating a British American Thanks to Derek Brook, Ian Davis, Paul more stable and secure world. With Ingram, Terry McSorley, Maggie Mort and Security Information offices, staff, advisors, patrons and Barbara Panvel for advice and comments, governing board membership on both and to the staff of Barrow Borough Council, Council sides of the Atlantic, we play a unique Furness Enterprise and the North West The Grayston Centre, role as a transatlantic bridge for policy Regional Development Agency for makers and opinion shapers. information on the Barrow-in-Furness 28 Charles Square, economy. London N1 6HT UK See our website for further details on Support the Trident replacement debate: Tel: 020 7324 4680 This publication was made possible through www.basicint.org Email: [email protected] funding from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable The content of this report is the sole Trust, The Ploughshares Fund and the Anita Roddick Foundation. and responsibility of the author and does 110 Maryland Ave, NE, not necessarily reflect the views of BASIC, its staff or Council members. Cover photos: Bob Straughton Suite 205 Washington, Cover photo of welder: Vesta’s factory in DC 20002, USA Campbeltown, Scotland. September 2004 Printed by Seacourt Ltd, Oxford on © Greenpeace / Kate Davison Tel: +1 202 546 8055 a waterless offset printing press Cover photo of offshore wind turbines also using paper of at least 75% post- © Greenpeace / Kate Davison www.basicint.org consumer recycled paper. Back cover photo: Bob Straughton Seacourt are EMAS certified and Inside front cover photo: John Northrup, carbon neutral. www.seacourt.net Tug Hill, NY, USA. i Oceans of Work: Arms Conversion Revisited January 2007 Contents iii Executive Summary v Introduction 1 Chapter One - Historical Background to Arms Conversion 3 Chapter Two - The Barrow Shipyard and Oceans of Work 6 Chapter Three - Arms Conversion Research and Policy Options 6 Introduction 7 Community Conversion 7 Macro-Economic Conversion 8 Comprehensive Conversion 10 Consolidation Rather Than Conversion 11 Conclusion 12 Chapter Four - The UK Military-Industrial Base and Arms Conversion 12 Introduction 12 Options for Change 14 Defence Industrial Strategy 14 The Trident Network 15 Trident Employment 16 Non-Offensive Defence Policy 17 Conclusion 18 Chapter Five - Alternative Technological Trajectories and Arms Conversion 18 Introduction 18 Early Years of Funding for Renewable Energy in the UK 19 Denmark and Wind Power 20 The UK and THORP 22 Contemporary Policy 23 A War on Global Warming 23 Conclusion 25 Chapter Six - Barrow-in-Furness and the Closure of the Shipyard 25 Introduction 25 Employment Decline, 1990-2006 26 The Local Economic Context 27 Keep Our Future Afloat Campaign (KOFAC), or Getting the Shipyard Off Our Backs (GOSUB) 29 Conclusion 31 Conclusion Windfarm in Washington State 34 Endnotes USA Photo: Tara Jorgensen British American Security Information Council — w w w .basicint.org ii Executive Summary This report is published a month after the Government’s White Paper outlining its decision to replace Vanguard ballistic missile submarines with an indigenously-manufactured submarine to continue deploying Britain’s strategic nuclear weapons.1 The House of Commons is due to vote on the White Paper in March. This report also comes two weeks after the House of Commons Defence Committee published its report on the industrial requirements surrounding this decision. The Committee concluded that British manufacture of nuclear-powered submarines required a regular orderbook without gaps.2 This report puts the case for arms Arms conversion is still popularly More radically, as in this report, conversion as integral to a ‘national associated with the end of the conversion is put forward as part of needs’ programme of civil R&D and Second World War, and the a ‘national needs’ agenda, manufacture, including a major successful re-integration of millions highlighting a fundamental shift investment in offshore renewable of people, both from the armed from military R&D and energy, for both security of supply forces and from the arms procurement to a programme of and to help tackle the growing industries, into civil manufacturing. investment in civil technologies for international threat from climate But this was essentially a major objectives like renewable change. It is based on a reconversion exercise back to civil energy and reduced carbon reevaluation of ‘Oceans of Work’, production in which companies had emissions in the face of a global produced by the Barrow Alternative considerable experience prior to the environmental crisis. Comparison is Employment Committee (BAEC) in war. The emergence of highly made between Denmark, as the 1987, as part of the campaign by specialised military firms has made leading nation in the development local trade unionists for alternative, this traditional approach of plant- and manufacture of wind turbines civil work to the construction of the based conversion problematic during the 1980s and 1990s, and Trident ballistic missile submarines because of the very different the UK’s industrial cul-de-sac of at the VSEL shipyard in Barrow-in- demands of civil manufacture and nuclear reprocessing, to emphasise Furness, West Cumbria. ‘Oceans of the high transition costs. the importance of central Work’ put forward an ambitious government leadership and broader programme to utilise the Alternative models provide a more institutional networks for shipbuilding and engineering skills relevant and contemporary successful (and unsuccessful) of the workforce, with particular approach to maximising technological emphasis on offshore renewable the economic trajectories. opportunities of energy, including wave and wind ...a fundamental The potential power systems. disarmament. For exists for a example, under shift from military massive The proposals were rejected by the macro- R&D and procurement to expansion of VSEL management who stressed the economic a programme of investment wave and continued importance of the conversion, in civil technologies for wind power company’s military specialism in central to satisfy up nuclear submarine manufacture. government major objectives like to 50% of the Employment declined, however, compensates renewable energy and UK’s energy from 12,000 in 1987 to just over for reduced reduced carbon emissions needs by 3,000 in 2006. Such job losses military in the face of a global 2030, while reflected the broader pattern of expenditure forming the consolidation and rationalisation in through other environmental basis for a major the arms industries, with overall forms of spending crisis. industry employing defence employment down from on infrastructure, tens of thousands of over 500,000 to 260,00 and with housing, etc, bringing workers to satisfy domestic BAE Systems (formerly British enhanced employment prospects, demand and export markets. Aerospace) emerging as the including those for redundant effective UK monopoly supplier in arms-industry workers. fighter aircraft, surface vessels and nuclear submarines. iii Oceans of Work: Arms Conversion Revisited January 2007 A key element of this new arms conversion framework is a fundamental review of UK security policy. Since the end of the Second World War, the underlying doctrine pursued with remarkable consistency by successive governments, has been to ensure the UK can support the United States in global force projection. The MoD’s Defence Industrial Vesta’s wind-turbine factory in Campbeltown, Scotland. September 2004 Strategy, published in 2005, which Photo: © Greenpeace / Kate Davison emphasised the need for long-range military platforms, including fighter The industrial implications of Here, the emphasis will be on aircraft, nuclear submarines and cutbacks to military procurement regeneration policy, involving aircraft carriers, is intended to are serious yet manageable and national government through the carry this doctrine on for the next temporary, including the closure of Department of Trade and Industry, twenty to thirty years. surplus manufacturing capacity and the Regional Development Agencies the run-down of military research and local economic task forces to A Non-Offensive Defence policy is facilities. Overall, approximately attract new industries and to one alternative that breaks with this 100,000 workers would lose their support programmes like the subordinate relationship and allows