Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department (a) received and (b) issued any (i) expressions of interest, (ii) preliminary market engagement questionnaires and (iii) pre-qualification questionnaires on the replacement for the E-3D Sentry.

The Government's default position on defence procurement remains competition wherever appropriate. However, in this case the threat has advanced, and is forecast to advance to such a degree, that decisive action is required now to protect national security interests. Whilst a final investment decision has not yet been made, our market analysis has led us to conclude that this pressing need can best be met by the operationally-proven E-7 Wedgetail. Testing the market further through any requests for information would be highly unlikely to identify any other mature system that could meet our pressing need whilst creating nugatory effort, cost and delay, during which the gap between UK capability and the evolving threat is expected to widen.