Emily Thornberry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether it is his policy for the House to be given an opportunity to debate in advance any decision to use his Department’s cyber strike capability.

Penny Mordaunt

We continue to develop the ability of our Armed Forces to deploy a broad range of offensive cyber capabilities as an integrated part of military operations. As with other sensitive defence capabilities, we do not reveal specific details in order to safeguard national security. As we have previously made clear in the context of the war powers convention, we do not propose to define the circumstances in which we would consult Parliament about the use of particular military capabilities.