Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December to Question 94229 on Autonomous Weapons: Procurement, what percentage of the £450 million on Uncrewed Systems was spent with British companies.

The Ministry of Defence's (MOD) spend of over £450 million on drones does not include spend in support of Ukraine. Over £300 million of the total spend was on uncrewed systems research and development, and the remaining spent on uncrewed system procurement.

The MOD has had delivery of over 8,000 uncrewed systems since July 2024. Due to operational security considerations, it is important to guard against the threat of adversary data aggregation regarding the specific detailed breakdown of UK military capability, including platform numbers and types, so it would be inappropriate to comment further.

The MOD works with over 60 companies to deliver drones for defence, 17 of which are British Companies. We are unable to provide a figure of total drone contracts at this time.