Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress his Department has made with the government of France on developing the scale and scope of the unmanned combat aerial vehicle programme agreed in January 2014.

Harriett Baldwin, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Minister for Defence Procurement: The two year £120 million UK/France Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) Feasibility Phase commenced in October 2014 and is due to be completed in January 2017. In Amiens in March 2016, we agreed with the French Government to extend the Feasibility Phase through 2017. As well as developing jointly our understanding of the required technologies for future combat air systems, this will further define the scope of the next phase of the UCAS programme which is due to begin in late 2017 and will develop two full-scale UCAS demonstrators by 2025.

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