'Regulatory handcuffs' forces Royal Marine to test underwater military drone in his garden pond

A Royal Marine was forced to test an underwater military drone in a pond in his own back garden because regulatory red tape made it too hard to trial the technology elsewhere, the defence secretary has claimed.

West Streeting told the House of Lords committee about the situation, acknowledging that the government needed to do more to remove the “regulatory handcuffs” preventing defence companies from building new weapons technology. Appearing in parliament on October 13, Mr Streeting said there had been a “big drive on deregulation across Government”, but added that defence technology testing routinely remained a source of “regulatory frictions”.

The defence secretary told the Industry and Regulators Committee: “You can understand why, in a defence context, you don’t just take off all of the regulatory oversight and constraints because we are talking about lethal capability. But at the same time, we have got – throughout our armed forces and throughout industry – people who are chomping at the bit to push the frontier of innovation, but there is still more to do.”

He added: “I met one Royal Marine who was developing underwater drone technology but testing it in a pond in his back garden because the regulatory hurdles to test in other environments were too high, so he just took the risk himself and did it at home. I mean, I applaud his ingenuity and drive for innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, but there should be the same can-do approach in his workplace.”

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Mr Streeting insisted the government had the “right intention and ambition and spirit”, but said there was still “more to do and more to go at” to remove regulatory hurdles.

He told the committee: “Where industry tells us that there is pointless regulation getting in the way, where our armed forces frankly tell us there’s regulatory handcuffs getting in their way – and we agree with them that they are pointless and not serving their purpose, or the risk calculus is in the wrong place and we’re not getting the balance right – we are really keen to act.”

Mr Streeting had earlier announced that a defence investment summit, promised earlier this year as part of the Government’s defence investment plan, would take place on December 1.

He told peers: “I think that is a great opportunity for this country to demonstrate the extent to which we are both investing more, but also open for business, and more than that, open for a real partnership with industry.”