How UK might try to keep the Strait of Hormuz open

The UK military is considering the deployment of two drone types to the Middle East after the US asked allies for help to secure a key shipping lane in the region, it is understood.

Donald Trump has urged the UK and other countries to send warships to the region to help secure the Strait of Hormuz after Iran closed the shipping route, causing oil prices to spike. Iran latest - follow live updates On Sunday evening, Sir Keir Starmer spoke with the US president about "the importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to end the disruption to global shipping, which is driving up costs worldwide." "We are currently discussing with our allies and partners a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region," the government said earlier in a statement to Sky News.

Which drones could be deployed? As the situation in the Middle East is heating up, a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson told Sky News that the government "will explore" using interceptor drones - which proved successful against the Iranian Shahed-type drones used by Russia in Ukraine - for the UK armed forces in the future. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that another type of drone being considered for deployment is mine-hunter drones.

"There are a range of things that we can do, including autonomous mine-hunting equipment. And that's something we're obviously looking at," he said.

He added the government was "intensively" looking at what it could do to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, vowing the UK will "work with our allies" to do so. What are mine-hunting drones? Several oil tankers have come under fire when they tried to pass through the strait, which lies to the south of Iran, and there is speculation Tehran has started placing mines in the passage.

The UK could deploy autonomous mine-hunting drones to counter this threat. Defence Secretary John Healey said earlier this week: "Now I've already got prepositioned in the region from before this conflict some autonomous mine hunting systems, and I've been talking to the planners today about additional options that we could bring to bear alongside allies if action is needed." The Royal Navy has four mine-hunting drone systems either in operation or development, including the Sweep system, made up of an uncrewed surface vessel and sophisticated payloads, SeaCat, which has two uncrewed surface vessels and three sets of uncrewed underwater vehicles to search for underwater threats, and the MMCM programme.

Another is the Wilton system, which contains crewed and uncrewed surface vessels, mine-detection payloads and remote command centres. This is already in operation in the Clyde area of Scotland and the Gulf, according to the MoD.

"The Royal Navy does have this capability, which is developing very fast," Sky News' military analyst Michael Clarke said. Not tested in combat With the Sweep system, instead of using specialist minesweeper ships, the military could use robots - "but it's a fairly young system.