RAF E-7 Wedgetail Programme

Debate between Mark Francois and Christopher Chope

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir Christopher, as we examine the progress—or rather the sheer lack of it—of the RAF’s E-7 Wedgetail programme.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) on introducing the debate in such an articulate manner, with a touch of humour to boot. As a battle of Britain buff, I enjoyed his historical analogies with that epic conflict in 1940 and the critical importance of radar and early warning. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), in whose constituency the valuable work of converting Boeing 737s into the Wedgetail variant is under way.

A couple of years ago, when I served on the Defence Committee—it is great to see the Chairman of the Committee in his place—I had the privilege of visiting the facility in Meriden where the work was being conducted. My hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East has been an assiduous constituency MP in standing up for the highly skilled workforce undertaking the conversion. I do have a number of serious concerns about the status of the Wedgetail programme, however, as he is about to hear.

I state for the record that none of this is aimed at the workforce in Meriden, but much more at the senior management of Boeing, a company now facing massive reputational issues in both civilian and defence areas. I would like to have congratulated the Reform MP who contributed to this debate but, as ever, they are not here because Reform don’t do defence.

We live in an increasingly dangerous world. The head of the British Army stated almost a year ago that we need to prepare for the possibility of a peer-on-peer conflict with Russia by 2027. If that is so, having a modern airborne early warning control aircraft, such as Wedgetail, in operational service would be vital. Moreover, if there were to be a ceasefire in Ukraine, Ministers have told us several times that it might involve not just boots on the ground but jets in the air. They also need eyes in the sky to protect them from a potential Russian threat. In short, we do not currently have any.

Part of the purpose of today’s debate is to elicit from the Government when E-7 Wedgetail will finally enter operational service with the RAF. That really matters. Experience in Ukraine shows the heavy propensity of Russia to attack targets with long-range cruise missiles. In the event of a peer conflict with Russia, it is highly likely that most of our fixed RAF radar stations would fall victim to cruise missile attacks within the early few days, or even hours, of such a conflict. At present, we can supplement those with a limited number of mobile radars. It is also unclear whether in wartime other airborne warning assets, such as via satellite and other overseas facilities, would also remain available for long.

In such a scenario—one which, as the international sky continues to darken, we are increasingly forced to contemplate—having mobile airborne early-warning such as Wedgetail would be critical to maintain the integrity of the UK’s air defences, plus covering RAF aircraft abroad. That brings me to the current sorry state of the Wedgetail programme, which is running years late and has now unfortunately been rated red by the Infrastructure Projects Authority. To remind hon. Members, a red rating is defined as a project that

“reflects serious concerns about the project’s ability to meet its objectives. Immediate corrective actions are needed to address fundamental issues, as the project is unlikely to succeed without significant changes or interventions.”

So, where are we today? Three 737 airframes are being converted at Meriden, including retrofitting them with the MESA radar. One of those aircraft has been completed, while the other two are still in work. However, according to a freedom of information request answered on 12 June, the first aircraft has flown only three times—two of them to get painted—and MESA, which is the whole point of the aircraft, has not even been turned on yet in flight. Why?

Moreover, as the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey), a member of the Defence Committee, revealed at a meeting of that Committee two weeks ago, the lead aircraft is struggling to achieve certification. He said:

“We were going to buy five, and then three, E-7s. They are horrendously late and overpriced. We have got one in with a special clearance, meaning that there is something that we do not know about that, which means that it cannot have a normal clearance.”

I appreciate that the Minister is likely to say that the previous Conservative Government should have made greater progress on Wedgetail, and I accept that we are not without blame in this field. Nevertheless, the new Government have now had a year to sort it out. The MOD and Boeing have been locked in complex negotiations over the so-called full business case that would allow Wedgetail to enter service, but those negotiations have still not been brought to a fruitful conclusion. Indeed, whereas the original concept was to service and maintain the Wedgetail aircraft in the United Kingdom, there are some media reports that it will now take place in the US instead. Can the Minister confirm whether that is true, and if it is—I hope it is not—will he say what the additional cost will be? To be clear, we need E-7 Wedgetail in RAF service, but we need it now, not in several years’ time.

The US, which also has to replace a large number of its ageing E-3 aircraft, was planning to do that with E-7, but the programme is likely to be cancelled. As a stopgap, the US is now apparently even considering buying several dozen E-2D Hawkeye aircraft, which, as the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) said, originally entered service in the ’60s. They were famously featured in “Top Gun: Maverick”, guiding the attacking F-18s into the target. What exactly has gone wrong with the programme in the United States? Why is the Department of Defence apparently going to junk Wedgetail in favour of Hawkeye, and later, space-based systems? If it does, what are the implications for the RAF Wedgetail programme?

Apparently, Boeing is now claiming that what was originally an off-the-shelf purchase of E-7 for the RAF is now turning into a development programme. Can the Minister explain exactly what that means? Can he reassure the House that if the US does withdraw, we are not going to ask the Royal Air Force to pay a vast amount of money to develop E-7, when the United States has refused to do so?

The Government have been running a competition for a national armaments director—the NAD. If media reports are to be believed, they have now narrowed it down to two remaining candidates. As the NAD will have to deal with the problem of Wedgetail, can the Minister update the House on exactly where we are on the appointment? Who are the two remaining candidates? Is it true that one of them is holding out for more money? When can we expect a definitive announcement on the appointment? It would appear that, despite extended tortuous negotiations between the RAF and Boeing, the matter has still not been brought to a conclusion. It may mean that the incoming NAD has to knock heads together to finally achieve some progress, which the 12,500 employees at Defence Equipment and Support do not appear to have managed to do. If it were me, I would start as I mean to go on. I would tell Boeing that it will not be granted any further contracts with the Ministry of Defence, be it for more helicopters or advanced jet trainers, unless and until it has introduced its project—its product, E-7 Wedgetail—successfully into operational service.

On 25 June, when the House debated the new NAD role, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), raised Wedgetail as a specific programme requiring more scrutiny. So concerned have I become while researching for this debate, and having considered the matter overnight, I asked this morning for a meeting with the Chair of the PAC, who wanted to be here this afternoon but unavoidably has to be elsewhere. He too was concerned, and he has authorised me to say that he is minded to write to the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence to ask what on earth is going on—his words—regarding Wedgetail, and to request a meeting about the programme.

In summary, as someone who served on the Defence Committee for seven years and was consistently highly critical of the Army’s Ajax programme—which I note in passing has still not entered operational service—I am afraid to say that, put bluntly, Wedgetail has now turned into the RAF’s very own Ajax. Here we are with another example of a highly complex, exquisite programme that, like Ajax, has not run massively over budget, but which is nevertheless years late, and there is still no guarantee that it even works properly in RAF service. This is threatening to become a £2 billion white elephant in the room.

May I conclude by asking the Minister three direct questions? I hope he can provide clear and ambiguous answers, given that he is covering for the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry this afternoon, while the Minister for Veterans and People remains on resignation watch. Question one: what is the exact status of the flight trials programme of the E-7 Wedgetail aircraft, and when will active trials of the MESA radar commence and conclude? Question two: what is the issue regarding certification of the airframe? What is meant by “limited certification”, and when are the aircraft expected to be fully certified by the Military Aviation Authority? Question three: when is E-7 Wedgetail finally expected to enter operational service with the RAF, and when are the second and third aircraft anticipated, to provide full operational capability? All experience suggests that if we are to maintain one aircraft consistently on task for any length of time, we would need all three aircraft in operational service in order to guarantee it.

I say again: when we were in government, we should perhaps have done more to accelerate the progress of this programme. But now that Labour is running the show, and has been for over a year, we need to know what the Labour Government are going to do about it. We cannot contemplate the possibility of war with Russia in which we would be virtually blinded within the opening hours. Wedgetail is now absolutely critical to the defence of the UK, so when, oh when are the RAF and Boeing going to get their collective house in order and bring this absolutely vital capability into service?

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Minister, you have 35 minutes in which to respond.

International Health Regulations 2005

Debate between Mark Francois and Christopher Chope

Monday 18th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I, too, thank the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) for setting out the issue, quite succinctly. I also thank her in her capacity as Chair of the Petitions Committee for having allowed us a three-hour debate. A consequence is that once all the Back-Bench contributions have been heard, we will be able to hear in extenso how His Majesty’s official Opposition will deal with this issue. Even more importantly, we will be able to hear the Minister, who I am delighted to see in his place, say exactly what the Government are doing in response to each of the issues raised in this debate, which are of crucial importance to so many of our constituents.

One of the reasons why we are where we are today is that the response to the debate we had on a petition on this subject in April was, frankly, totally inadequate. It was full of generalisations, and vague suggestions that somehow it was all going to be all right in a day. It really was, “Why are you bothering the Government with this trivial material?” This issue goes to the heart of what the House is all about. It is about who is in charge. Are we, as a democratic Parliament, in charge of the laws of our country, and any attempt by the Government to give away control over those laws to an unaccountable international organisation? It is because of that concern that so many people have signed this petition and we are having this debate again today.

If my right hon. Friend the Minister does not address these issues today, people will say that the Government are not taking this seriously. That would be a disaster. Once we have given away these powers to the WHO, which is power hungry—what international organisation is not power hungry? The WHO certainly is—it is very difficult to get them back. There are ongoing discussions about where we stand in relation to international treaties and international law. There is the insidious development, following the recent Supreme Court case, of what is called “customary” international law. That development basically means that a group of outsiders can tell us in this country what is good for us and what is not.

[Mr Francois]

For the avoidance of doubt, will my hon. Friend agree that none of us has argued this afternoon for withdrawal from the World Health Organisation—we might call it Wexit, for want of a better phrase—

[Mr Francois]

“Yet,” says another hon. Friend. But we want to be assured that the WHO cannot overrule this sovereign Parliament. That is a fundamental difference, is it not?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Absolutely; I agree with my right hon. Friend. We do not want to withdraw; there is no need to withdraw from a voluntary organisation that is confined to giving us advice and providing data and information. Who would resent having access to data and information? Indeed, the essence of the relationship between a responsible society and its Government is that the Government should provide information to enable individuals to decide for themselves whether they want to take particular medicines, go on trips to particular countries, be vaccinated in a particular way, or whatever.

I see the proper role of the WHO as providing information to Governments across the globe. Those Governments can then decide for themselves what they like and do not like, having regard to the fact that the WHO’s chairman seems to have been imposed on it by the People’s Republic of China, and was strongly opposed by our Government. It seems very much as though the whole WHO is too beholden to China. The WHO is also beholden to some of its big donors; if one analyses how the WHO is funded, one sees that organisations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are significant supporters. He who pays the piper calls the tune. I think that is a good starting point when looking at these things. In the case of the WHO, there is too much evidence that the people paying the piper are calling the tune to too great an extent.

Once bitten, twice shy. Let us remind ourselves what happened during the pandemic. As others have mentioned, the WHO went into the pandemic with a policy of saying that lockdowns were not, and could not be, the right answer to a pandemic for all sorts of reasons. We can now see the adverse consequences that flowed from our country’s decision to have a lockdown, and we can compare that with what happened in Sweden. Then, during the early part of the pandemic discussions, and without any evidence being brought forward, the WHO suddenly changed its advice. Why? There is a suspicion that it was because of undue influence from the pressures that I have been describing. We will never know why it changed its advice. All we know is that somebody who changes their advice like that, without any evidence, should not tell us what to do. We should say, “If you want to change your advice, fine, but why do you change it? We don’t have to follow it.” However, under the proposed treaty amendments, we would have to follow it. That is obviously of great concern, because people can see what happened in the past, and that is potentially a guide to the future.

Even more sinister than the change in advice on lockdowns was the WHO’s approach to finding a treatment for covid-19 patients. There was a lot of evidence to suggest that ivermectin—it was not the only such drug—could be used to really good effect to improve outcomes for patients suffering from covid-19. Strong evidence suggested that treatment with ivermectin might improve someone’s chances of survival by as much as 81%, but the WHO intervened at the behest of certain pharmaceutical companies that were in competition with the producers of ivermectin. It gave very dubious advice, to the effect that ivermectin should be used only in clinical trials.

To those who are not familiar with too much of the detail, I commend a book by Dr Pierre Kory, a distinguished physician and epidemiologist—I think he is an epidemiologist. He certainly deals with pulmonary and critical-care medicine; he is a specialist in that. He was in charge of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, and produced a book called “The War on Ivermectin”. It was a war, organised by the WHO, against a remedy for covid-19, because, obviously, the whole vaccine development programme was premised on there being no cure for covid-19, and no effective treatment for it. In the absence of such treatment, it was legitimate for experimental vaccines to be brought into play without undergoing the full process set out in the Licensing Act 2003, because there was there was nothing else. We were in the desperate situation of there being no other way out. Actually, however, there was a lot of evidence to suggest that ivermectin—