Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the effect on his Department's polices of the proposed European Council and Parliament regulation to establish a European Defence Industrial Development Programme.

With the proposed regulation still subject to EU Council and EU Parliamentary approval, and to be tested in practice in 2019 and 2020, it is too early to draw any substantive assessment of its effects on Departmental policies. To help ensure a positive outcome, our current priorities are: to ensure that the terms of the regulation are flexible enough to attract a wide range of innovative industrial proposals; that while the regulations focus is on encouraging industrial cooperation within the EU it also supports other international cooperation, such as through NATO; and that it allows third country industrial participation. We have also made it known to the EU and our partners that we are open to considering options and models for participation in the European Defence Industrial Development Programme after we have left the EU, though any final decision shall form part of the wider withdrawal negotiations.