Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of concerns raised about the dreadnought programme by the NAO in its report The Defence Nuclear Enterprise: a landscape review, published on 22 May; and whether they anticipate the programme being delivered within budget.

Her Majesty's Government welcomed the National Audit Office report on the Defence Nuclear Enterprise, which set out the complex nature of the enterprise, and recognised the positive steps that have been taken to deliver this technically challenging network of programmes.

The Dreadnought programme is one of the most complex engineering programmes ever undertaken by the United Kingdom. It remains on schedule to deliver the first of class into service in the early 2030s and within the £31 billion estimated cost as stated in Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015.