§ Mr. Menzies CampbellTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will report on progress made by his Department in defining requirements for the EH101 helicopters which he announced he intended to order in April 1987.
§ Mr. SainsburyMy right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Defence, announced to the House last year the MOD's intention to order, subject to the satisfactory resolution of contractual and other issues, a utility variant of the Anglo/Italian EH101 helicopter for the RAF to meet the requirement for additional support helicopters in the central region.
Following that announcement, work was set in hand to define more precisely the RAF performance requirements. This work has been carried out in close consultation with EH Industries Limited, the main contractor for the EH101 project, and its parent companies, Westland and Agusta. We will now start the formal project definition stage which will examine in detail the RAF's foreseen requirement against a range of options and establish more firmly the costs and risks involved.