Lobbying Andy Reed

On 1^st March I joined around 100 members of the Speak Network, a Christian network of students and young adults who campaign and pray about issues of global injustice, to visit parliament to lobby our MPs about government support for the arms companies.

Speak recently launched a new arms trade campaign which is asking the government to do two things:

• Close DTI DSO – a government department devoted to helping arms companies to achieve sales around the world. 170 civil servant work for DTI DSO. Just 120 work for the department which supports all other industries in the UK. This is disproportionate when you consider that the arms industry accounts for just 0.5% of the UK workforce.
• Open a new department which would help companies which sell arms, and those who work for them, to diversify into areas which would have a positive impact on our world, for instance research into, and production, of renewable technologies. Arms industry workers are often highly skilled engineers who could, with a bit of help, transfer into these kinds of areas.

To read more about the campaign see the Speak website.

And you can take part in an e-action connected to the campaign by visiting the Campaign Against the Arms Trade website.

When I arrived at Westminster I discovered that Andy Reed, Loughborough’s MP at the time (parliament has since been dissolved ahead of the general election and so there are no MPs at the moment), and a supporter of Speak in the past, had booked the room we were using on behalf of Speak and was also opening the event with a speech. So, unsurprisingly, I discovered that he fully supports the campaign.

After his speech various MPs arrived and were lobbied by their constituents from the Speak network. I was the only person from Loughborough so I got to have a good 20 minute chat with Andy Reed. Although he fully supports the campaign he hadn’t actually done any of the actions Speak are asking MPs to do. So I set him some homework (!) – to find out what happened to the Defence Diversification Agency set up by labour in 1998 – and promised to write to him to find out what he had discovered if he was still my MP after the general election. If he doesn’t get in I’ll have to start the conversation again with our new MP.

Andy spoke about how when he was first elected as an MP in 1997 he lobbied for the end of the use of landmines. Many people at the time thought that this was an unrealistic demand. He came across similar arguments to those know used in support of retaining a lot of government support for arms companies – that landmines provided jobs and income and that if we didn’t make them someone else would! Since then an international treaty banning the use of landmines has been signed by more than 150 countries and most people in the UK would now consider it ludicrous to consider reintroducing them.

Over the coming months Overflow, Open Heaven’s social justice group, will be getting involved in Speak’s arms trade campaign, alongside our existing arms trade campaign which is aimed at seeing the university adopt an ethical funding policy. If you would like to get involved then let me know.

Having visited parliament to lobby my MP I would encourage anyone else to lobby our next MP about an issue which concerns them. You don’t have to go to London: MPs hold surgeries in their constituency and you can write letters or send emails. If you’re a student you can lobby both your Loughborough MP and the MP in your home constituency. Find out more at writetothem.com.

You can also find out more about the day, which also included a creative protest, prayer and communion outside the offices of DTI DSO, also at Speak's website. 

Posted by: Caroline Harmon on Tuesday May 4th, 2010

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