Douglas Chapman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Chapman on 2016-06-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department (a) has allocated and (b) plans to allocate resources to study the potential threat posed by unmanned underwater vehicles to the SSBN fleet.

Mr Philip Dunne

The Government takes its responsibilities for maintaining the integrity of our submarine fleet extremely seriously and dedicates considerable resource to ensuring that the credibility and standards for operational effectiveness will continue to be met. Our submarine fleet will not be rendered obsolete by new technologies, including developments in unmanned underwater vehicle technology. I am withholding further details as publication would prejudice or would be likely to prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of the Armed Forces.