Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of the £400 million allocated to UK Defence Innovation in 2025-26 will be available to firms outside the designated factory locations, including in the North West.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
UK Defence Innovation (UKDI) will support high-tech businesses across the UK, including the North west. The ringfenced budget of £400 million for 2025-26 will focus on novel technologies, including dual-use systems.
UKDI will invest in structures to support business growth and to increase investment into SMEs, start-ups, and non-traditional defence suppliers to support a diverse and agile supply chain across the UK.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of enabling existing defence-manufacturing clusters in the North West, including aerospace and advanced materials firms, to contribute to the planned ‘always on’ munitions pipeline.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We are committed to ensuring the Defence industry is an engine for growth through strengthened industrial relationships and domestic investment. As published in the UK Defence Footprint the North West region has seen £4.8 billion of Defence spending in 2024-25. We have committed £6 billion this Parliament towards munitions, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review 2025, which supports defence capacity whilst generating local jobs and economic prosperity. This investment includes £1.5 billion for building six new energetics and munitions factories in the UK to deliver an 'always on' pipeline, locations and arrangements of which are being assessed through ongoing work. Whilst it is currently premature to comment on specific site proposals and their assessment, more detail will be available once the necessary preparatory work has been completed.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what criteria he used to determine the potential sites for the new munitions and energetics factories; and if he will publish the assessment methodology.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We are committed to ensuring the Defence industry is an engine for growth through strengthened industrial relationships and domestic investment. As published in the UK Defence Footprint the North West region has seen £4.8 billion of Defence spending in 2024-25. We have committed £6 billion this Parliament towards munitions, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review 2025, which supports defence capacity whilst generating local jobs and economic prosperity. This investment includes £1.5 billion for building six new energetics and munitions factories in the UK to deliver an 'always on' pipeline, locations and arrangements of which are being assessed through ongoing work. Whilst it is currently premature to comment on specific site proposals and their assessment, more detail will be available once the necessary preparatory work has been completed.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when the Armed Forces Commissioner is expected to be appointed; and when the Commissioner's office is expected to be fully operational.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
We are in the process of recruiting an Armed Forces Commissioner . It is expected that a Commissioner will be appointed in early 2026, with plans for their office to be fully operational in April 2026. The role is subject to scrutiny in accordance with the principles of the Governance Code on Public Appointments and overseen by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. We remain committed to appointing the right person for this critical role, which is central to delivering a trusted and effective service for our people.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 2.6 of the report entitled The UK’s F-35 capability, HC 989, published by the National Audit Office on 11 July 2025, what steps are being taken to address personnel shortfalls within the F‑35 programme.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We inherited a retention and recruitment crisis from the last Government and are determined to fix it.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has introduced a programme of surging recruitment for the RAF so that it returns to workforce balance across every specialisation.
This activity includes a significant focus on the engineer profession where, over the last two years, the RAF has offered joining bonuses and increased the capacity of Technical Training Schools to enable more recruits to be trained.
To improve retention, the RAF has implemented a Financial Retention Incentive for engineers.
The recruitment and retention of personnel remains one of the top two priorities for the Chief of the Defence Staff.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 22 of the report entitled The UK’s F-35 capability, HC 989, published by the National Audit Office on 11 July 2025, if he will set out the updated estimate of the whole‑life cost of the (a) equipment, (b) personnel, (c) infrastructure, (d) fuel, (e) ammunition and (f) total cost of the F‑35 programme.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The F-35 programme reports costs to the Departments and National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) policy as a Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP). My Department will address the Public Accounts Committee recommendations in the formal Government response to the Committee in due course.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the use of GPS-enabled smart watches on the security of UK defence sites.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The Ministry of Defence has strict rules governing where smart devices, including GPS-enabled smart watches, can and cannot be used. We do not comment on the detail of those measures.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the US government shutdown on joint UK–US defence (a) projects and (b) research collaboration.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
There has been no impact on our defence projects or research collaboration where we have continued to engage with those essential US staff who continued to work during the shutdown.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent discussions he has had with (a) private and (b) allied training providers on increasing pilot training capacity.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Royal Air Force (RAF) Directorate of Flying Training continues to engage on a regular basis with private and allied training providers regarding pilot training capacity.
There have been recent discussions with private training providers, in line with the Strategic Defence Review 2025, recommendation 48d. These discussions have been focused on assessing the cost-effectiveness and viability of private training providers for elements of multi-engine pilot training to meet a short-term increase in front-line demand for multi-engine pilots due to the introduction of new Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) platforms within the RAF.
For allied training providers, military engagement is conducted through the NATO Flight Training Europe (NFTE) high visibility project, as well as Air Staff talks with strategic partner nations, Due to the commercial tender process and pending defence engagement technical agreements, it is not possible to disclose more specific details of discussions with specified private and allied training providers.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of recruitment levels of pilot trainees for meeting the RAF’s future operational requirements.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
A full and ongoing assessment has been made by the Royal Air Force (RAF) to ensure that there are adequate pilot recruits entering the Service to meet future operational requirements.
The RAF has sufficient pilots to meet its current front line operational requirements.