Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 72 of the Defence Industrial Strategy: Making Defence an Engine for Growth, published on 8 September 2025, CP 1388, what recent progress he has made in piloting the provision of a high fidelity virtual test range.

As set out in the Defence Industrial Strategy, our Test and Evaluation Transformation programme is piloting the provision of a high-fidelity virtual test range, focused on the evaluation of UK equipment in the most demanding operational environments. This project will pave the way for the UK Defence enterprise to rapidly test, innovate and integrate systems against the most demanding operational use-cases.

Since publication of the Defence Industrial Strategy, the project’s technical approach has been tested through the largest and most ambitious multinational trial ever undertaken on a virtual range of this type. This successfully validated the technical direction of the project and work is underway to establish the facilities needed to expand access to the pilot by the summer of 2026.