Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen the resilience of UK critical national infrastructure against attack in the context of the Kremlin's statement of 25 August 2026.

Defence is continuing to work closely with the Cabinet Office and other Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) Lead Government Departments to deliver the Strategic Defence Review recommendations for a new deal for the protection of CNI.

We are working across Government to take a data-driven approach to identifying the CNI most essential to the UK’s ability to sustain and respond to conflict. By contributing Defence data to the Cabinet Office's CNI Knowledge Base, we are fulfilling the commitments set out in the Resilience Action Plan and improving our understanding of the infrastructure, dependencies and vulnerabilities that would be most critical in a conflict scenario.

This analysis is informing our Home Defence planning by ensuring that we align Defence resources and capabilities to the protection of the most important infrastructure against a broad spectrum of threats, from hybrid activity through to conventional conflict

Defence is investing an additional £470 million to improve the security of military sites in the UK. Through the Defence Investment Plan and the wider Home Defence Programme, we are also investing in capabilities including Integrated Air and Missile Defence. Defence is investing £240 million in Project PRESAGIUM, an enhanced counter-drone system, providing effective detection and defeat of emerging drone threats. We are growing and equipping the Reserves to support Homeland Defence tasks and enhancing capabilities to protect critical underwater infrastructure.