To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Written Statement of 4 December 2023 entitled Update on the AUKUS Defence Partnership, HCWS89, how much his Department has spent on increasing its cyber capabilities since the announcement of the programme.
Answered on
24 January 2024
The UK Government has made a significant investment in offensive cyber capabilities, providing a £114 million increase in the National Offensive Cyber Programme as part of the £2.6 billion investment in cyber and legacy IT at the 2021 Spending Review. Within AUKUS, the three Governments are collaborating with industry partners to deploy advanced tooling which will uplift the cyber security of our supply chains, while also giving us greater insight into the threats to AUKUS. As the cyber budget is delivered through integrated programmes across multiple defence and intelligence agencies, it is not possible to disclose individual Departmental spending.