Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Air ISTAR Optimisation Study included any analysis of the comparative whole-life costs across all Defence Lines of Development of deploying the different solutions to any maritime surveillance and long-range anti-submarine warfare capability gap.

The information requested is not available, as typically such questions are addressed at a later stage in a procurement cycle. A decision on whether to acquire a new capability will not be made until the next Strategic Defence and Security Review.