Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of deploying additional missile defence systems to allies in the Gulf, such as the UAE and Bahrain.

This remains an extremely challenging and unsettling time for many across the Middle East. The UK condemns Iran’s role in attempting to draw the region into a wider conflict. Our priority is to protect British nationals, British interests and our partners and allies in the Gulf. We support action that will help bring a swift resolution to this conflict, and an end to Iran's reckless and escalatory response

As part of our contribution, the UK has deployed additional military capabilities to the region. As confirmed by the Prime Minister in his statement on 5 March 2026, an additional four Typhoon aircraft are now deployed to Qatar to provide regional defensive counter air including UAE and Bahrain. RAF Typhoon and F-35 aircraft are continuing air operations over Jordan, Qatar, and Cyprus and the wider Gulf region in defence of British interests and allies.

We continue to assess other assistance requested from our regional partners.

Ministry of Defence are leveraging the expertise of British Defence Industry to enhance our regional partners’ defensive capabilities, particularly regarding C-UAS and Air Defence. Defence Attachés in the region have an updated list of UK companies who have capability to support have been engaging with our partners across the Gulf to understand their requests.

We are working at pace to match Middle East requirements with Industry offers. We are also facilitating Government to Industry (G2I) connections for Middle East countries and UK Industry to hasten support to our regional partners.