Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the emergency services network compared with Airwave in transmitting mission-critical voice data in all operational circumstances.

The plan for delivery of the Emergency Services Network (ESN) includes an extensive period of testing and trials, culminating in one or more major operational trials. All test cases are derived from the ESN user requirements, which were developed with Emergency Services to ensure that the new network would perform as well, or better, than the Airwave service. User representatives are involved in all the test phases and will have final signoff on the suitability of ESN for mission critical use.

The Government is very clear that there will be no risks with public safety and there will be no gap in the emergency services’ communications provision. It will ultimately be for the emergency services themselves to confirm they are content with the new ESN service and the existing Airwave system will continue until transition is complete.