Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether any delays were caused to the Crowsnest AEW helicopter programme by poor maintenance of the Merlin helicopter originally assigned to the trials programme.

Maintenance activities on the originally assigned helicopters, either scheduled or unscheduled, did not cause a delay to the trials programme. The aircraft successfully undertook ground-based trials to assess electromagnetic compatibility. In addition, the radar flight trials programme was not impacted.