Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he has taken to strengthen the UK’s defence strategic partnership with France since February 2022.

The Integrated Review Refresh recognised France as one of our most important European partners. Through the 2023 UK-France Summit, we reaffirmed our commitment to the defence and security partnership of the 2010 Lancaster House Treaties. We also agreed to deepen our capability and defence industrial cooperation. The UK and France have also committed to progress activity to ensure mutually interoperability of weapons and platforms.

British and French forces regularly operate alongside each other. This includes joint participation in the UK-led NATO Enhanced Forward Presence Battlegroup in Estonia - and combined exercising, including in the French Croix Du Sud exercise in April 2023 in the Pacific, and Exercise Orion 23 in May 2023 in Europe.