Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many incursions into sovereign UK airspace took place in the last 12 months; and what the nature of those incursions was.

In the last 12 months there have been no unauthorised incursions by any foreign military aircraft into sovereign air space around the UK, which projects 12 miles off shore or to mutually agreed mid-points between adjacent nations over narrow straits such as the Straits of Dover. In terms of recent Russian military aircraft activity which has attracted media attention, these aircraft have remained in international airspace at all times. The UK civil air traffic region and the NATO Air Policing Area, for which the UK have responsibility for monitoring, include large areas of international air space through which foreign military traffic may legally transit.