Armed Forces: Aircraft

House of Lords written question – answered at on 28 October 2010.

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Photo of Lord Taylor of Warwick Lord Taylor of Warwick Non-affiliated

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the impact which the decommissioning of 80 Harriers will have on the United Kingdom's defence strategy.

Photo of Lord Astor of Hever Lord Astor of Hever Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip), The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence

The strategic defence and security review assessed that over the next five years the over-riding priority is operations in Afghanistan. Retaining Tornado over Harrier allows a fast jet contribution to be sustained there while also supporting concurrent operations. This would not have been possible with Harrier.

After 2015 Harriers-whether they were operating from HMS "Illustrious", or at the end of the decade from HMS "Queen Elizabeth" or HMS "Prince of Wales"-would provide only a very limited coercive capability. We judge it unlikely that this would be sufficiently useful in the latter half of the decade to be a cost effective use of resources as we reduce the variety of aircraft types and hence costs. Furthermore, we neither have over-flight restrictions where our forces are likely to operate nor foresee any in the next 10 years. Therefore, we assume we will need current strike capability around 2020. However, this will be reviewed as part of the next strategic defence and security review in 2015.

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