The Ministry of Defence understands the scale of drone production that a future conflict would demand and is working on the ability to manufacture them en masse, Defence Minister Luke Pollard told the House of Commons.

The Labour MP for Widnes and Halewood, Derek Twigg, asked whether the department grasped the sheer number of drones and counter-drone systems that would need to be produced at scale, now and in the future, should a conflict break out, and sought an assurance that this was understood within the MoD. Pollard, who holds the readiness and industry brief, said it was.

He said learning the lessons of the war in Ukraine was one of the central pillars of the Strategic Defence Review, and that the work on autonomous systems went beyond continued investment in high-end capabilities such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and one-way attack drones to the question of how to deliver mass effect. Pollard argued that the rapid pace at which drone technology changes meant it did not always make sense to hold large stockpiles. “Having the ability to produce millions of drones while recognising the shortages in the supply chain, especially around motors, magnets and cameras, is the way that we can enhance our capabilities and our deterrents,” he said, telling MPs the department was actively working on the issue.

This is a shift in thinking that the war in Ukraine has driven across NATO militaries, where small uncrewed systems have been produced and expended in very large numbers and where designs change from month to month in response to countermeasures. That tempo has led planners to favour the capacity to manufacture drones quickly over holding fixed reserves that risk being obsolete by the time they are used, an approach sometimes described as keeping a warm production base rather than a full warehouse.

The supply-chain constraints Pollard identified are widely recognised across the sector. Small drones depend on components such as electric motors, permanent magnets and camera modules, supply of which is concentrated in a small number of countries, with China dominant in the processing of the rare earth materials used in high-performance magnets. Reducing that dependence, and building domestic or allied sources for the parts, has become a focus for governments seeking to scale up uncrewed systems production without relying on potential adversaries for critical inputs.

Counter-drone capability, which Twigg also raised, has become a parallel priority as the threat from cheap uncrewed aircraft has grown, with armed forces investing in the means to detect, track and defeat hostile drones alongside the systems they field themselves.