Identification Friend or Foe System (Hansard, 14 June 2000)

§ Dr. Moonie

This is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency. I have asked the Chief Executive to write to the hon. Member.

Letter from Robert Walmsley to Mr. Mike Hancock, dated 14 June 2000: I am replying to your question to the Secretary of State for Defence about procurement of the Successor Identification Friend or Foe (SIFF) system for the Royal Air Force. This matter falls within my area of responsibility as Chief of Defence Procurement and Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency. The SIFF programme involves fitting new electronic equipment into some 40 different types of Sea, Land and Air platforms. Total equipment requirements are likely to number in the order of 1000 transponders and 600 interrogators: each has to be functionally and physically integrated with the host platform. SIFF is a complicated project. The only contract placed to date for fitting SIFF has been to the Royal Air Force's Tornado F3 aircraft. This was placed with the then British Aerospace, the aircraft design authority in 1998. This contract was placed ahead of the main SIFF programme in order to achieve cost savings through alignment with the Tornado Capability Sustainment Programme. Separately, but also in 1998, the SIFF Integration Study and Planning Phase (ISPP) commenced with contracts being placed with individual platform type design authorities to investigate the fitting of a SIFF system to the platforms in the main SIFF programme. The overall value of the Tornado F3 and ISPP contracts together amounts to some £100M, and this is within the original budget provision. 645W Owing to the number and diversity of the platform types, it is not possible to adopt a single prime contractor approach to manage the main SIFF programme, which amounts to an estimated value of over £400M. Outputs from ISPP have included Demonstration and Manufacture tenders provided by two competing potential equipment suppliers, BAE SYSTEMS and Raytheon Systems Ltd, covering many of the platform types, and from individual platform design authorities for the remainder. Evaluation of these tenders is an extensive and intensive task, to ensure that the decision on the choice of equipment supplier and the phasing of the work to be undertaken by the individual platform design authorities is made on the best overall balance of operational and value for money grounds. We are currently considering the way ahead in the light of this and in the current competitive situation are unable to provide further information on costs or budgets. I hope that we will be in position to announce a decision on the programme, including the choice of equipment supplier, during the summer.