Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, for what reason the CDEL costs on the purchase of the E-7 Wedgetail has not changed despite the programme reprofiling.

The data tables in the Project Performance Summary Table (PPST) that accompanies the Defence Equipment Plan are a snapshot as at 31 March 2021, and the decision announced in the Integrated Review to reduce the fleet size from five aircraft to three had not been formally enacted in the MOD's cost forecasting system at that point. The new forecast is currently being finalised ahead of the PPST22 data capture and the Defence Equipment Plan for 2022 will show the new reduced figure.