The systems used to control covert, mental process such as spatial attention are closely linked with the systems used to control eye-movements. However, the extent to which these cognitive processes depend upon the oculomotor system remains controversial. In this talk I will present data from behavioural and neuropsychological experiments and argue that reflexive orienting of attention is critically dependent on the ability to plan and execute eye-movements whereas voluntary attentional orienting is largely independent of oculomotor control. These studies will be interpreted in terms of a ‘Motor Bias’ theory of attention, which proposes that activation in the oculomotor motor system feeds into the process of biased competition in the visual system, but is not the sole arbiter of the locus of spatial attention.