http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38510344

It's a mackerel with a laser pointer taped to it. Or at least it will be by the time the MOD have paid three times the contract price.

Oh the indignity of being engaged by the USS Ponce. I guess it means something different in the States.
And yeah, the MoD will almost certainly end up with laser pointer armed enraged sea bass for a massive amount of money more than originally envisaged.

The energy output needed for a battlefield scale laser weapon is fairly substantial. you'd need a reasonable sized ship with a LOT of power generation to make one practical at all. Given the RN doesn't even HAVE any substantial sized ships currently, and the ships it has it can't keep the electricity generation working on half the time, this seems utterly pointless to me.

Plus there's still quite a lot of discussion as to whether powerful laser weapons (as oppose to laser markers or rangefinders) are allowed within the Geneva conventions or not. And while ISIS might not feel the need to stick to them, our armed forces are supposed to.

Could be good for defending ships from missiles.

The problem for laser weaponry is that it needs a direct hit to do damage and, depending on the power level, a certain amount of time on target to inflict damage.
In the fullness of time I'd expect them to nail down both things but for the time being I expect the rapid fire shell cannons we currently use to be in service for quite some time.

Perhaps we should try and steal plans for the death star

Not sure we have the Bothans to do that.

They're dead?

Quite a few of them are, yes.