In August 2023, a special adviser left the Ministry of Defence to become director of strategic engagement at German defence firm Helsing that November. The following February, less than a year after leaving, the Spad was back at the MoD attending a “routine industry engagement” meeting alongside his new employer.
There is no evidence that any rules were broken, but this case raises questions about a system which allows a relatively swift transition from shaping policy to working within industries affected by it. Last November, Helsing opened what it described as “its first UK Resilience Factory” in Plymouth. The company is looking to win contracts to supply drones to the UK (its drones have been used extensively by Ukraine since Russia’s invasion).
This is a prime example of the revolving door between private defence companies and the UK government and military officials. With increased defence spending unavoidable, are there enough safeguards in place to ensure private companies are not getting an unfair market advantage at the taxpayer’s expense?
Prospect has exclusively analysed almost a decade of business appointment filings from the MoD, other departments and the now-defunct Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba). During this period, we identified more than 120 applications by former senior military officers, civil servants and politicians to take paid positions with firms either directly holding MoD contracts or bidding for them, or operating within the wider defence sector.
There is nothing inherently improper about former defence specialists moving into industry. It makes sense that people who have spent their careers in the army or at the MoD will look to find work in a related field where they can apply their expertise and knowledge. Some churn between the private sector and government is inevitable, and also useful “to build each other’s skills”, says Margaret Hodge, who served as the first elected chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
But, adds the Labour peer, “Dealing with the revolving door is central to cleaning up politics…this needs to be addressed urgently as a massive increase in defence expenditure will create new vulnerabilities and challenges.”
In one particularly egregious case reported by the Times last year, a former Army brigadier attended meetings with the Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems about a major contract it was trying to win with the UK military in the weeks after he left the military, despite being in a “cooling off” period where he was not supposed to be involved in such activity.
Until recently, lower-tier appointments were reviewed by the MoD or the relevant department, while the most senior roles were scrutinised by Acoba. Although the MoD (and formerly also Acoba) can and does sometimes impose conditions such as temporary lobbying bans or cooling-off periods, neither has ever had the power to meaningfully sanction any rule breakers or compel former officials to cooperate.
There is also a question of how rigorously government departments are choosing to apply and enforce these rules. For the last three financial years the MoD has published business appointments figures in its annual reports. During these three years the MoD reviewed 106 business appointment requests. All were approved, some with conditions, with not one being “found to be unsuitable”. Not a single breach of the rules was recorded.
Former Acoba chair Eric Pickles has been scathing, calling the previous system “dead in the water, next to useless, utterly pointless”. Interestingly, while Acoba oversaw top-level cases, it was the lower-level recruitment—handled in-house by departments—that Pickles described last year as “the area that I was most concerned about”. He said he “thought the last Government were extraordinarily lucky not to have had a scandal”.
Last month, Pickles told Prospect via email that, “Ironically, the Ministry of Defence has a well-managed risk assessment protocol compared to other Government Departments. However, there is no getting away from the unhealthy close relationship it enjoys with its contractors. It is understandable that close cooperation is necessary, but the value of the contracts merits distance and detachment.”
The movement of former government officials into the defence industry risks blurring the boundaries between the two. This makes it harder to ensure decisions are taken solely in the public interest so that private companies compete on a level playing field and former military personnel and former government officials do not face clear conflicts of interest.
The industry’s broader economic weight makes this of great significance. According to ADS, the sector’s trade body, the UK defence industry directly employs 181,500 people and generates more than £13bn in exports annually. Successive governments have therefore been eager to champion the sector as a key part of UK plc. The government even operates a dedicated agency, UK Defence and Security Exports (UKDSE), which uses taxpayer funds to help British defence firms secure overseas deals.
As a result, the state is left performing two conflicting roles at once: the customer demanding value for money, and the cheerleader promoting the very same companies to foreign governments. Unsurprisingly, the line between public interest and corporate interest becomes increasingly difficult to draw.
As will surprise few who are familiar with the sector, BAE Systems is the leader of the pack when it comes to hiring former army or MoD personnel, having recruited 18 former defence specialists over the last decade.
In recent years, those who have made the switch include the former director general of the Office for Science and Technology Strategy, the former cyber security ambassador for the former Department for International Trade, and the head of space capability for the MoD. It is not suggested that any of them have breached business appointment agreements or acted improperly.
BAE has a long history of major contracts with the MoD, including playing a leading role in the consortium that designed and built the UK’s two aircraft carriers and is currently building the new Type 26 frigates for the Navy. Keir Starmer offered a vivid example of how blurred these boundaries have become in a recent press release celebrating the completion of a £10bn deal for Norway to purchase Type 26 frigates built by the British defence firm. “This Government has forged new partnerships across the world to deliver for people at home,” he said, “and the export of our world-leading Type 26 frigates to Norway will do exactly that.”
According to research by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) “between 2012-23, BAE Systems had more meetings with ministers, and more with Prime Ministers, than any other private company.”
When Prospect contacted BAE Systems for comment a spokesman told us: “We take our responsibility to protect the people who ensure the safety and security of the UK extremely seriously. We hire on merit and operate with high standards of integrity and compliance with applicable regulations, including the UK Government’s business appointments rules.”
Following closely behind BAE is Babcock, which has made 13 former government hires, including the recent director of UKDSE, who joined as the firm’s managing director of business growth. Meanwhile, US arms giant Raytheon has taken on four former defence officials or military personnel, while Leonardo, Airbus, Lockheed Martin and QinetiQ have each hired three.
But one of the most active firms in recent years is Helsing. Its hires include a former Number 10 press secretary as head of communications, the former MoD special adviser, mentioned above, two former ministers who joined as advisers, and former chief of the defence staff general Nick Carter, who sits on its advisory board.
These appointments have all been properly declared and approved. Still, that doesn’t preclude the connections between those working for the MoD and those who benefit from their contracts remaining close.
Chris Cole, director of campaign group Drone Wars UK, is astonished at “just how many senior political and military officials a newcomer like Helsing have taken on as paid advisors over the past 18 months”. These appointees bring “a wide range of relationships and contacts to enable companies to gain influence at the highest levels” and that this “access can be really harmful if it skews genuine discussion and debate” within government. Prospect approached Helsing for comment, but the company did not respond.
The revolving door reaches far beyond traditional arms manufacturers. Outsourcing firms and management consultancies are involved too, with KPMG and PA Consulting together hiring seven former defence experts over the past decade.
Here again, the connections between government and business can be close. Transparency filings show that a former MoD civil servant—who was the “senior responsible owner” for tactical military communications projects in the department—met with the “PA Consulting contract lead” for the programme on 15th March 2024. Four months later, on 22nd July, the civil servant joined PA Consulting as a “consulting director.” Again, this was completely within the rules and properly declared and approved, and there is no implication of wrongdoing. But it does show how close the connections between business and government are, and how much the private sector prizes the knowledge of former government experts. It also highlights how quickly the system allows senior staff to move from one side of the table to the other.
The controversial Peter Thiel-linked tech firm Palantir—covered extensively in Prospect—has also hired six former government specialists. These include former minister for the armed forces Leo Docherty, who works for the company as an adviser. This appointment was reviewed at the time by Acoba who, while noting that “there is a reasonable concern this role could be seen to overlap with your recent ministerial roles” approved the appointment subject to a number of conditions. These included not “becoming personally involved in lobbying the government” or having “any engagement.. with the UK government” on behalf of Palantir for two years from Docherty’s last day as minister.
In September the MoD announced a new £1.5bn “strategic partnership” with Palantir, which would include developing “AI-powered capabilities…. to speed up decision making, military planning and targeting.” This is just the latest major government contract the company has won in recent years.
In July the government announced reforms to the business appointments rules, including scrapping Acoba and transferring its functions to new bodies. The government also introduced plans to claw back severance payments made to former ministers who seriously breach the rules.
Critics argue that these changes don’t go far enough. Spotlight on Corruption, a transparency advocate, says “it is highly doubtful whether these rules will have robust enough deterrence without stronger and legally enforceable penalties.” Chris Cole from Drone Wars UK agrees, saying that the rules are “in urgent need of strengthening”. He notes that “in the area of defence procurement the run-up to awarding contracts can be many, many years”, meaning lobbying bans on former officials should be “extended to at least five years”.
According to Pickles, “There is a high degree of entitlement among ex-ministers, ex-crown servants and ex-civil servants on moving on with indecent haste to lucrative jobs in the private sector,” said Pickles. “While I am pleased that the government has taken up many of my suggested reforms, I think they have not properly addressed their appetite for risk nor properly emphasised perception. How things ‘look’, is an important factor in retaining public trust.”
“The government needs to be precise about what is acceptable,” Pickles added. “It needs to be unambiguous from the first day of appointment on what future employment is acceptable. That is the easiest way to address the cohort effect, where the present one takes care of the last one, in expectation that the next cohort will take care of them. This should apply to all key posts that deals with procurement and contracts”.
In a speech to this year’s Munich Security Conference, Keir Stamer made it clear that the UK government will need to spend even more on defence than the increase to 2.5 per cent by 2027 he pledged last year. “To meet the wider threat, it’s clear that we are going to have to spend more, faster”, the prime minister told world leaders. In an increasingly unstable world, and with the government poised to increase the defence budget to a level not seen in decades, the need for a system that truly protects the interests of the public has never been greater.
