Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress his Department has made on the development of Joint Force 2025; and if he will make a statement.

In 2015 we set out a step change in our ambition for UK Defence; the ambition to be able to war-fight at scale by 2025. Our headmark for this is Joint Force 2025, a highly capable deployable force of around 50,000 personnel drawn from all services. We have made significant progress in delivering the Maritime Task Group, Army Division, Air Group and Joint Forces that make up this deployable force. But there are still challenges. We know the threat picture for the UK has evolved since 2015, this was acknowledged in our Modernising Defence Programme, and there is still work to be done to ensure we are on track for delivery by 2025. The forthcoming Integrated Review on Security, Defence and Foreign Policy and the Comprehensive Spending Review provide us a unique opportunity to refresh our plans for Defence to make sure that we are delivering the right capability to keep the country safe now and in decades to come.