Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's press release entitled Rapid £140 million boost for drone and counter-drone tech from newly-formed UK Defence Innovation, published on 15 December, whether his Department has placed any contracts for additional laser weapons to complement the UK's DragonFire system since 5 July 2024.

This Government is investing in Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) to accelerate these capabilities into service, developing sovereign technology and systems to put the UK at the forefront of an emerging market and be an engine for growth. Directed energy was designated a frontier industry in the Defence Industrial Strategy.

The funding covered in the 15 December press release is helping the Ministry of Defence (MOD) stay at the forefront of DEW, ensuring UK capabilities benefit by continuous improvement of the technology, systems, and sub-systems, by undertaking research and development to make them more efficient and effective. This will contribute to advanced future capabilities across laser and radio-frequency (RF) systems across all domains, that will come into service on a longer timescale, building on the learnings we take from accelerated capabilities like DragonFire.

The Defence Investment Plan will outline our future plans, and whilst we cannot comment on all contracts for security and commercial reasons, we are exploring DEW applications across many use cases, both within the MOD and with partners across Government.