UK and EU lobbying registers are not sufficient to track influence from the arms industry.

While both systems have some transparency measures in place, they are riddled with significant loopholes and fail to capture the full extent of the industry's influence, particularly in a sector where secrecy is often justified by claims of national security.

UK: A System with a Major Flaw

The UK's system for lobbying transparency is fundamentally flawed. Its primary law, the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, has a major design flaw that severely limits its effectiveness in tracking the defense industry's influence.

• The "In-House" Lobbying Loophole: The Act only requires consultant lobbyists (firms that lobby for clients) to register. It explicitly excludes in-house lobbyists who are employed directly by a company. Since major defense contractors like BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce have large in-house public affairs teams, their lobbying activities are largely hidden from the public. This means the official lobbying register provides a woefully incomplete picture of who is meeting with whom and what is being discussed.

• The Revolving Door: The UK's system for managing the movement of officials from government to the private sector is also weak. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), which is supposed to regulate these moves, has been criticized as a "toothless watchdog" because its recommendations are not legally binding. This allows former military officials and ministers to move into lucrative jobs in the defense industry, where they can leverage their insider knowledge and contacts for private gain without effective public scrutiny.

• Financial Opacity: The UK's system does not require lobbyists to disclose how much they spend on their activities. This makes it impossible to gauge the financial scale of defense lobbying, leaving the public in the dark about the resources the industry commits to influencing policy.

EU: A More Transparent but Still Imperfect System

The EU's system is generally considered more robust than the UK's, but it also has significant shortcomings that allow defense lobbying to operate with a degree of opacity.

• The EU Transparency Register: The EU Transparency Register is a central public database that requires lobbyists to register and disclose their budgets and policy interests. Officials in the European Commission and some key Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are also required to publish records of their meetings with lobbyists. This provides a valuable, though often incomplete, paper trail of influence.

• Voluntary and Weakly Enforced: While the register is mandatory for certain lobbying activities, the system still relies on self-reported data. Watchdog groups have found that lobbying budgets are often under-reported, and a significant amount of lobbying takes place in informal settings or with lower-level officials where disclosure rules are weaker.

• Targeting Advisory Bodies: A key vulnerability in the EU's system is the use of advisory groups by the European Commission. These groups, which are often dominated by industry representatives, provide a private channel for influence that can be difficult to track publicly. For example, the design and priorities of the European Defence Fund (EDF) were shaped by groups that gave defense firms a disproportionate say in how a multi-billion-euro fund would be allocated. The transparency of these discussions is often limited, giving corporate interests a disproportionate say.

In conclusion, both the UK and EU's lobbying registers are insufficient to provide a full and transparent picture of the defense industry's influence. The UK's system is fundamentally inadequate due to its failure to cover in-house lobbyists, while the EU's system, though better, struggles to fully track informal influence and the growing number of meetings with defense lobbyists.