Recommendation 117

The Defence Command Paper Refresh (DCP23) looked at the requirements for strategic resilience in its final chapter. In relation to the defence of the homeland, the MOD highlighted areas where Defence plays a critical role, including the policing of national airspace (through the constant provision of Quick Reaction Alert aircraft) and UK waters (monitored by maritime patrol aircraft, surveillance software, coastal radar, 227 Q350 228 Q351; 361; 374; 402; 446; 453 229 Q472–3 230 Q473; Oral evidence taken on 18 April 2023, HC (2022–23) 1246, Q56 231 Oral evidence taken on 12 December 2023, HC (2023–24) 54, Q118 232 Q383 Ready for War? 45 aviation operations, space-based reconnaissance, and government vessels)233 The DCP23 committed the MOD to increasing efforts to deliver integrated air and missile defence with the RAF promoting the use of “advanced ground-based, airborne, at sea and space-based sensors, and an extensive range of air and missile capabilities, including counter-UAS, to detect, protect and defend the UK”.234 The MOD also announced it would examine the missile “detection and interception technologies of the future”.235 In November 2023, we heard that proposals to strengthen “medium-range air defence system and improving its command-and-control capability, to go beyond what we currently have in the Falklands and to develop a contingent capability” were shortly to go before the investment approvals committee in the MOD.236