Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much of the £6.6bn in R&D spend for defence announced in his Department's paper entitled Defence and Security Industrial Strategy: A strategic approach to the UK’s defence and security industrial sectors, CP 410, published in March 2021, is (a) uncommitted and (b) unspent.

As part of this Spending Review Period (financial years 2021-22 to 2024-25) the Department established a ringfence of £6.6 billion for R&D across the four years. This was a minimum required spend over the period, rather than a set amount. All R&D funding is allocated to Top Level Budgets (TLBs) as part of the annual budget cycle, and have been able to spend more than the ringfence as long as it is within the Department's overall budget.

In the first three years of this Spending Review period the department exceeded its targets and spent over £6 billion. Whilst forecasts for R&D spend for this financial year are subject to change, we ultimately expect to comfortably exceed the £6.6 billion ringfenced figure by the end of this financial year.