Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what is the investment value for AUKUS Pillar 2.

As announced at the latest AUKUS Defence Ministerial Meeting, we are investing in the first Pillar 2 Signature Project on cutting-edge payloads and enabling systems for uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs). This will be funded from within the £1.3 billion investment to accelerate the Royal Navy's use of autonomous and uncrewed systems, and £1.2 billion investment in wider Underwater Warfare set out in the Defence Investment Plan.

This builds on our investment of over £3.8 million into the AUKUS innovation challenges, and the funding of existing AUKUS Pillar 2 workstreams, which is through various budgets across defence.