I am writing to express my deep concern about the £8,367,691 handed over in the last three years from the Scottish Government through Scottish Enterprise to multi-billion-pound arms companies that have been profiting from the genocide in Gaza and the bombardment of Yemen. The values and priorities our Scottish parliament claims to uphold do not align with the work of BAE Systems, Leonardo and Raytheon, who focus on reaping profits from the death of Palestinian children. This cosy relationship between Scottish Enterprise and arms companies must stop now.
Furthermore, it seems impossible that Holyrood could possibly berate the UK government for licensing weapons to Israel while the Scottish government are funding the development of these weapons for use by the Israeli forces on people in Gaza.
If the Scottish government actually want to champion human rights, then they should question how six arms companies that have applied for export licences to 22 of the 30 countries on the FCDO Human Rights Priority list have received over £8 million from the public purse. This is a massive failure of the supposed Human Rights Due Diligence checks deployed by Scottish Enterprise; they must take responsibility and not leave it up to the warmongering arms companies to declare that they are morally bankrupt.
So we demand that both the First Minister of Scotland, along with the Minister for Small Business, Trade and Innovation lead an extensive review of the policies and priorities of Scottish Enterprise and its partner bodies - including Highlands and Islands Enterprise - and ensure the implementation of a new, functional, Human Rights Due Diligence checklist to ensure that public funding does not fall into the hands of arms companies who profit from conflict and repression and do not align the priorities of the Scottish people.
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