Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what (a) recent assessment his Department has made of and (b) further steps his Department is taking to tackle the threat to UK Armed Forces of chemical weapons.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) keeps the threat from chemical weapons under constant review and will take full account of recent events in Salisbury and Syria. We are continually working on improvements to our Armed Forces' capabilities against a wide range of Chemical Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) threats. The MOD's Modernising Defence Programme (MDP) will ensure that Defence and the Armed Forces are configured and equipped to address evolving threats, including from CBRN, that we and our allies face. The Department intends to be in a position to share headline MDP conclusions by the summer.