Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness performance of the Crowsnest AEW system during last year's Carrier Strike Group 21 deployment.

The performance of the CROWSNEST Airborne Surveillance and Control system, as a baseline capability, was continuously monitored throughout the Carrier Strike Group 21 (CSG 21) deployment to inform its ongoing development and incremental delivery.

As to be expected, opportunities were identified during the CSG 21 deployment to improve the CROWSNEST system. As a result of user feedback, two further software upgrades have been implemented on time and fielded on deployments with CROWSNEST in 2022. A third upgrade is due to undertake flight testing early 2023.