MPs are urging interested parties to attend an online conference on the future of the UK drone industry, which will look at policy, regulation, investment, growth and innovation in the drone sector.

The conference, which is being organised by a cross party group of MPs, known as the Westminster eForum, will be held on line on Monday 31 March this year.

The Westminster eForum is part of Westminster Forum Projects and the organisation’s conferences are frequently the platform for major policy statements from senior ministers and regulators, opposition spokesmen and leading opinion-formers in industry and interest groups.

This latest conference will see stakeholders and policymakers discuss next steps for policy and regulation, including the implementation of the Civil Aviation Authority’s plan to deliver scalable and routine Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS) drone operations by 2028, and plans for a demonstration phase in 2025. 

Delegates will assess implications of proposed airspace modernisation for drone use, in light of the ongoing consultation by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and DfT into the creation, scope and funding of a UK Airspace Design Service.

The agenda will also look into progress of the DfT’s UK Future of Flight Action Plan, including priorities for the government, CAA and industry in achieving strategic outcomes, with discussion on developing of legal and regulatory frameworks and the way forward for testing emerging use-cases.

Sessions will explore priorities for the Regulatory Innovation Office and its role in supporting innovation in the sector, including approaches for both industry and regulatory bodies to enable wider commercialisation and drone use-cases.

The conference will also look at challenges related to investment and innovation within the drone sector, and explore strategies to develop a more supportive investment climate, including the future of UK Research and Innnovation’s Future Flight Challenge initiative, alongside strategies for supporting investor confidence.

The way forward for promoting safety and public acceptance will also be discussed. 

The forum will also stage keynote sessions with a host of experts including Sophie O’Sullivan, CAA Future Flight Programme director, Robert Garbett, chief executive of Drone Major, and Dave Pankhurst, BT drones director. 

In 2023 BT Group invested £5m in startup drone firm  Altitude Angel in a move aimed at creating a drone corrido, across southern and central England to carry cargo and other supplies.

The scheme involves the creation of a 165-mile drone corridor above Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby – which the two firms hope will become the UK’s drone superhighway and the largest and longest network of its kind in the world.

The long-term aim is to create a network connecting towns and cites, as well as linking transport and package delivery hubs across the country.

Announcing the conference, the Westminster eForum said: “All delegates will be able to contribute to the output of the conference, which will be shared with parliamentary, ministerial, departmental and regulatory offices, and more widely.”

Interested parties can book online here. For those unable to attend the conference on the day a pre-order recording of this conference is available via the Westminster eForum website.