Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems; and whether her Department will support a global ban on the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems at the meeting of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons on 2 December 2021.

The UK - alongside many other states - is unconvinced of the utility of a global ban on the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. Existing International Humanitarian Law provides a robust, principle-based framework ideally suited to the regulation of new technologies. The UK believes that efforts within the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons are better focused on the establishment of a set of positive obligations to ensure autonomy is used responsibly, ethically and in compliance with international law.