Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of developing regulations to safeguard against the mis-use of DNA synthetic screening by the (a) armed forces and (b) defence industry.

Defence has committed to adopting new technologies in a responsible way and responsible science was a key theme of the 2018 UK Biological Security Strategy. UKRI continues to promote this with UK industry through a responsible innovation campaign.