Anglo-French MPA?
Arguments over whether RAF, RN or Coastguard should have primacy over a future MPA are parochial.
I agree that we will have to have a new MPA in the not too distant future, but why not an Anglo-French venture, possibly financed by another PFI as in Air Tanker?
Given the rumblings of a joint Anglo-French SSBN nuclear deterrent in the future, the obvious conflict of interest is evaporating. Every other role is common.