Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent progress his Department has made on the pursuit of a (a) deployable and (b) persistent wide area anti-submarine warfare search capability.

Atlantic Bastion is the Royal Navy’s plan to secure the North Atlantic for the UK and NATO, as set out by the Strategic Defence Review. Navy Command is now focussed on delivering it. The first phase is now underway with industry engagement and associated commercial activity ongoing. This will see the Royal Navy integrate with commercial partners to provide elements of Anti-Submarine Warfare data collection through a service model that increases operational mass and persistence in targeted areas of the North Atlantic.