Senior Ministry of Defence officials have faced blunt criticism from MPs over the pace at which the UK is fielding drones and one-way effectors, amid warnings that British forces lag behind key European allies in deployed capability.
During an evidence session of the Defence Committee, Labour MP Fred Thomas argued that the UK was falling well short of Germany in translating rhetoric on drones into equipment on the ground, particularly in NATO’s eastern flank. Thomas pointed to Germany’s decision to deploy significant numbers of one-way effectors alongside troops in Lithuania, contrasting it with the British deployment 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.” He warned that official assurances about progress risked obscuring the reality on the ground. “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 criticism came as Rupert Pearce, the newly appointed National Armaments Director, set out plans for a restructured UK approach to defence innovation, amid questions over whether the MoD’s internal structures were capable of matching the speed seen in the United States. Thomas challenged Pearce on whether the UK’s procurement system was fundamentally at odds with the spiral development model used by the US Department of Defense, where frontline users and commercial technology firms work directly on rapid solutions.
Pearce acknowledged concerns but said the US itself was reassessing how innovation bodies operate within defence structures. He told MPs that 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 organisation, UK Defence Innovation, had been established to take a more systematic approach to 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 described a model intended to capture ideas at every stage of maturity, from academic research to early-stage 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.” Pearce said frontline units would still play a role in identifying urgent needs, but responsibility for sourcing and scaling solutions would 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.”
He added that the organisation would have significant resources to accelerate development. “UKDI has £400 million this year to splash on fostering those rapid iteration cycles,” he said, alongside a parallel effort to attract private capital into defence technology firms. Further questioning highlighted the tension between sustaining today’s readiness and funding long-term transformation, particularly in light of commitments made in the Strategic Defence Review.
Responding to Conservative MP Lincoln Jopp, Pearce acknowledged that this balance 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.”
Fred Thomas could be a contributor on here with that insight. The answer was hardly encouraging mind going on about redistributing the deck chairs rather than getting new lifeboats.
Is it just me but couldn’t “We have to deal with the issues of today while we build the Armed Forces of tomorrow,” be equally, arguably more important the other way around ie building the armed forces of today while dealing with the potential issues of tomorrow which are far less predictable are more nuanced and changeable in terms of actual answers than many of the immediate needs? If you try to do the best with what you have while waiting for that perfect answer for tomorrow you have probably already lost, you need to add to your present capabilities that you know you need and others are doing while trying to anticipate longer term trends and developments. The Minister seems to think this is mutually exclusive and everything needs to be exact throughout before making centralised decisions. That never actually happens but does explain why we have endless committees and deferred decisions while waiting for horses to turn into perfect unicorns before committing. Cop out on steroids.
We are amidst a veritable “Swarm” of drone articles. 🪇🪇
We might be behind on drones but we are making leaps and bounds on one way effectors 😀