Kevan Jones – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevan Jones on 2016-06-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many UK (a) flight crew, (b) ground crew and (c) intelligence analysts have served on US P-8 Poseidon aircraft under the Seedcorn exchange programme; and what the cost to the UK public purse has been of deploying those people since the start of that programme.

Mr Philip Dunne

The Seedcorn programme in the US on P8 aircraft started in 2012 with 20 personnel involved and has remained at 20 for each subsequent year (allowing for minor fluctuations during transitory periods). As the Seedcorn programme is an aircrew initiative, no ground crew or intelligence analysts have served on US P8 under it.

The total cost of the Seedcorn programme since inception is some £14.1 million. It is not possible to break out actual costs for personnel by location and aircraft type.