Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent progress his Department has made on fitting military vehicles with direct energy weapons to help protect from swarm drone attacks.

This Government has announced nearly £1 billion in further investment for Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) to bring these capabilities into service, including a new DEW for the British Army by the end of the decade.

We have recently completed trials of both radio frequency and laser DEW demonstrators mounted on British Army vehicles, putting DEW in the hands of the warfighter so we can learn from their experience and shape the development of future systems. This included the first use of DEW by the Army to counter drone swarms as part of live testing against targets.

DragonFire, our high energy laser for Type 45 destroyers, recently completed a trial that saw us fire 300 times, proving consistency and reliability, and included 30 drone defeats and firings in adverse weather conditions. This is critical to system development, meeting our plan to put it into service from 2027.