Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps hen has taken to help tackle the capability gap in the early warning and command and control (AEW&C) capability.

Early retirement of Sentry in 2021 allowed for reinvestment into our fleet of Wedgetail AEW Mk1, which will be a vastly different and significantly more capable system than Sentry and will provide an advanced Airborne Multi-Domain Battle Management platform. As we transition between the two platforms, the UK will benefit from NATO tasking as required, with the NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force, by a suite of other RAF Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance assets. The CROWSNEST helicopter based AEW&C is also in service.