Red tape forced Royal Marine to test underwater drone in his own garden pond, Defence Secretary reveals

Published: 10:14 EDT, 13 October 2026 | Updated: 10:30 EDT, 13 October 2026 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, Wes Streeting has revealed.The Defence Secretary told the story as he acknowledged the Government needed to do more to remove the 'regulatory handcuffs' which were preventing defence companies from building new weapons technology.Appearing before a House of Lords committee on Tuesday, 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'. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting vowed to strip away red tape so state-of-the-art weaponry can be developed and introduced into service along faster timelines.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.'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.'