UK MPs have warned that Britain is falling behind key allies on military drone capability, as senior Ministry of Defence officials came under sharp scrutiny in Parliament over the slow pace of deployment.
During a session of the House of Commons Defence Committee, MPs criticised the gap between government rhetoric on drones and the reality facing British troops on NATO’s eastern flank, arguing that countries such as Germany are moving far faster to field modern systems.
Labour MP Fred Thomas told officials that the UK was lagging well behind Germany in deploying one-way effectors alongside frontline forces. He contrasted Germany’s planned deployment in Lithuania with the UK’s presence in Estonia.
“In hard terms Germany will be sending troops out to Lithuania with €350 million-worth of one-way effectors; we will not be doing that with our troops in Estonia any time soon,” he said. “Our troops in Estonia do not have that capability.”
Thomas warned that repeated assurances from the Ministry of Defence risked masking serious capability gaps.
“To continue this line, which we continually get from the MoD… that we are doing these things and we have these capabilities does not help anyone. We don’t. We are not doing them anywhere near quick enough. That is the reality.”
The exchange came as Rupert Pearce, the newly appointed National Armaments Director, outlined plans for a revamped approach to defence innovation, amid questions over whether the UK’s procurement system can keep pace with the speed of development seen in the United States.
Thomas pressed Pearce on whether Britain’s defence structures were fundamentally incompatible with the rapid “spiral development” model used by the US Department of Defense, which allows frontline users and private technology firms to collaborate directly on fast-moving solutions.
Pearce acknowledged concerns but told MPs that the US was itself reassessing how defence innovation bodies operate. He said Washington was moving to bring the Defence Innovation Unit back under tighter Pentagon control.
“I met the chief scientist of the DoD last week in Washington… and he is bringing the DIU back into the Pentagon, integrating it under his group with DARPA,” Pearce said. “I think they want to drive greater consistency in their procurement and in their efforts around innovation.”
In the UK, Pearce said a new body, UK Defence Innovation, had been created to provide a more systematic way of identifying and developing emerging technologies.
“We have set up a new body called UK Defence Innovation, which will sit along DSTL doing the horizon scanning on novel technologies in the UK and supporting those novel technologies,” he said.
He explained that the organisation would capture ideas at every stage of maturity, from academic research to early commercial ventures.
“The early-stage technologies might be in an academic arena… later-stage technologies might be something in someone’s garage or something that has got early funding from VCs.”
Frontline military units would continue to identify urgent operational needs, but Pearce said responsibility for sourcing and scaling solutions would now sit centrally.
“They will throw it over the transom at us. It is the job of UK Defence Innovation and DSTL to go and find these technologies.”
Pearce said the new organisation would have substantial funding to accelerate development, confirming that UK Defence Innovation has £400 million this year to support rapid innovation cycles, alongside efforts to attract private investment into defence technology firms.
Further questioning exposed the strain between maintaining current military readiness and funding long-term transformation set out in the Strategic Defence Review.
Responding to Conservative MP Lincoln Jopp, Pearce said the tension was unavoidable.
“We have to deal with the issues of today while we build the Armed Forces of tomorrow,” he said. “There absolutely is a tension… We have to sustain and enhance our readiness today with what we have and what is available in the next couple of years, and we have to transform over the top to create the Armed Forces of tomorrow.”
The hearing highlighted growing cross-party concern that, without faster delivery, the UK risks falling behind allies as drones and autonomous systems reshape modern warfare.
