Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the effect of the decision to cease the service of Raytheon Sentinel on the UK economy.
The Covid-19 outbreak has had no bearing on Sentinel.
The Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 determined that Sentinel should have an out of service date (OSD) of March 2021.
Sentinel’s radar and mission system are now increasingly obsolescent and will face increasing reliability issues as time progresses. Retaining the capability would have required significant upgrade expenditure and the March 2021 out of service date has been retained. It is necessary to retire certain capabilities at planned OSDs to allow re-investment in future capability.