Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop the UK’s global leadership on hypersonic missiles and other hypersonic technologies; and what progress they have made in the development of a domestically manufactured hypersonic missile.

The UK is demonstrating its leadership in the global hypersonic arena by active participation in the AUKUS Pillar 2 Advanced Capability Partnership. Since inception in 2022, the UK has been championing accelerated capability development with AUKUS allies, whilst also developing the long-term future of the UK's hypersonic industrial base.

Additionally, MOD continues to work with existing allies and international partners to investigate a range of advanced future capabilities.

Building on previous research and development, the MOD has established a Programme Team - Team Hypersonics (UK) - to cohere Ministry of Defence, industry and academia around the development of a sovereign hypersonic capability.

Team Hypersonics (UK) has established the Hypersonic Technologies and Capability Development Framework (HTCDF). This bespoke £ one billion Commercial Agile Route to Market is the mechanism to facilitate a spiralled approach to technology development through to a sovereign capability. 90 suppliers including defence primes, small & medium enterprises (SME) and academic institutions are now signed up.

With these enablers in place, the testing of critical sovereign-designed and manufactured missile sub-system technologies continues, including a novel hypersonic propulsion system. Several invitations to tender have already been released to spirally develop a range of technologies. These and future ITTs will allow the development of technical demonstrators and onwards into a capability.