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Written question asked by James Cartlidge (Conservative) on Tuesday, 30 June 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 2 July 2026. It was answered by Luke Pollard (Labour) on Wednesday, 8 July 2026 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Uncrewed Systems: Testing

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of limited testing environments on the testing of uncrewed and autonomous systems.

Answer

Defence is spending over £5 billion on autonomous systems to enable transformation by 2030 which is the largest ever drone investment in Defence. We recognise that more testing capability is required to support this and so have announced the new Defence Uncrewed Systems Centre in Swindon, including the recently opened DroneTEX testing facility, to coordinate all output with industry, partners, and allies.

In addition to the large number of current drone testing sites in the UK and in our overseas territories, we will invest to exploit the size, scale, and freedom of the key site in Canada at the British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) for testing and evaluation and to accelerate delivery of capability. This will enable uncrewed systems activity across 2,700m2 of training area.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
14380
Session
2026-27
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Testing Uncrewed systems
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk