§ Mr. HancockTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many artillery hunting radars have been leased from Ericsson to fill the capability gap left by the delay in selecting a bidder; what the total cost was of leasing; and if he will make a statement. [70427]
§ Dr. MoonieFour Arthur weapon locating radars were leased from Ericsson in April 2002 to satisfy an urgent operational requirement. The systems were deployed operationally by the end of April 2002. The cost of the lease is commercially sensitive and so I am withholding it under Exemption 7 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.
A competition to satisfy the Army's requirement for a mobile artillery monitoring battlefield radar was launched in October 2001. Ericsson was selected as the preferred 493W bidder and a contract was placed for four Arthur systems in June 2002. These are an upgraded version of those that have been leased and will offer an increase in capability when brought into service with the United Kingdom armed forces. There was no delay in selecting a preferred bidder, but work to confirm the requirement took longer than expected.