Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many drones for military use were produced in the UK in each of the last three calendar years.

The Ministry of Defence does not hold a central record of all drones produced within the UK for military use.

Nevertheless, as highlighted by the Strategic Defence Review, drones now play an essential role in warfare across the land, maritime and air domains, which is why the Defence Investment Plan prioritises uncrewed systems, investing more than £5 billion in a plethora of platforms over the next four years alone. This funding will accelerate the transformation of our Armed Forces, rebuilding warfighting readiness and ensuring our forces are equipped for modern warfare.

To give just a few examples, £230 million will be spent on autonomous systems for seabed warfare to protect critical national infrastructure; £400m will be spent to deliver a suite of inexpensive, expendable autonomous systems and weapons to rapidly enhance the lethality of the Army, Commando Force and Special Forces; and we will invest £50 million on a variety of novel payloads, such as swarms of small drones, able to be launched from a wide range of crewed and uncrewed aircraft.