The chairman of arms manufacturer BAE Systems repeatedly declined to say whether the company’s employees are loading bombs on to Saudi Tornado jets involved in the conflict in Yemen.

Sir Roger Carr was confronted by activists at the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday over BAE Systems’ operations in Saudi Arabia and its recently announced £100m jet deal with Turkey.

“We supply equipment and we maintain equipment, but we are not involved in any military action,” he said. BAE Systems staff in the country are “looking after the aircraft to make sure they can perform to the specification”.



The activists, from Campaign Against the Arms Trade, cited a job ad posted by BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia for a weapons loading technician for the Tornado jets the company maintains for the Saudi air force.

Carr said all war is “terrible” and quoted Theodore Roosevelt’s maxim about diplomacy: “It’s best to speak softly but talk with a big stick,” he said. “We provide the stick, but we hope that these talks succeed and the politics resolve the crisis [in Yemen] ... war helps no one. The sooner it stops, the better.”

For the past two years, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition of nations carrying out thousands of airstrikes in Yemen aimed at suppressing an insurgency by Houthi rebels. The campaign has been criticised by organisations including the United Nations for repeatedly targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. The Saudi air force, which has carried out the bulk of the attacks, relies substantially on technical support and maintenance provided by BAE Systems under a government-to-government contract with the UK.

A judgment is expected soon in a court case challenging the British government’s decision to keep granting export licences to Saudi Arabia despite mounting concerns about the toll of the strikes.



The Saudi-led campaign is an act of self-defence against terrorism, Carr said. “This is not an aggressor: this is a defender ... They are protecting themselves.”

The company relies on the British government’s judgments about whether weapons it manufactures will be used to breach human rights, Carr said: “We are not arbiters: we are suppliers of equipment under a contract.”

Asked whether BAE Systems is concerned by Turkey’s recent moves towards authoritarianism and by its cooling relationship with Nato, he said: “We have to deal with things as they are today and not speculate too much on what they may or may not be tomorrow.”

It is the British government’s responsibility to keep a “weather eye” on Turkey’s relationship with Nato, he said: “If the government recognises or believes that things are changing ... I’m sure they will respond and react.”

BAE Systems saw a £1.1bn rise in its sales last year to £19bn, which the company attributed to the fall in sterling following the EU referendum.

