HC Deb 07 December 1998 vol 322 cc61-2W
Mr. Jim Cunningham

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress has been made since 16 December 1997 in respect of a joint French, German and United Kingdom commitment to a new generation of military satellites. [62279]

Mr. Spellar

The UK considered a range of procurement options, including collaborative, national conventional and national Public Finance Initiative (PFI) solutions to meet our requirements for the next generation of UK military satellite communications, known generically as SKYNET 5. In order to allow the UK to consider fully the collaborative option, known as TRIMILSATCOM, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with France and Germany on 16 December 1997 and tenders for the full range of options were received in February 1998.

Following a thorough evaluation of the options by the UK, it was clear that TRIMILSATCOM would not meet the UK's requirements in an affordable way, and, crucially, would not be ready in time to replace our existing satellites when they went out of service. The assessment also showed that a National PFI approach had the potential to offer an affordable and timely solution. It was therefore decided that the UK would not proceed with the TRIMILSATCOM PD programme. Our partners were informed accordingly on 12 August 1998.

We now plan to let two parallel design study contracts for a UK PFI solution in early 1999, with completion planned by the end of 2000. We envisage placing an Implementation contract some 12 months later, with the system coming into service in the middle of the decade.

France and Germany are being kept informed of the project's progress and their officials were briefed on the PFI programme on 3 December 1998.