Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty's Government why they chose to implement an E-7 Wedgetail conversion programme to maintain the UK’s Airborne Early Warning and Control capability rather than procure new Boeing 737–700 AEW&C aircraft.

The E-7 Wedgetail is a military derivative based on the Boeing 737 NG civil aircraft and has always been produced by modifying that aircraft with a sophisticated radar and mission system suite along with other military systems. Wherever the E-7 is produced it involves the modification of the base aircraft and by undertaking this work at Marshall Aerospace and Defence in Cambridge we have ensured that several hundred highly-skilled jobs have been sustained in the United Kingdom.