Call me cynical in my old age but I guess that it is all part of a deliberate plan......
The bean-counters are thinking ahead, postulating that if HMQ can find alternative transport then so can her children/children-in-law and other miscellaneous Royal hangers-on! It then follows, what is the justification of having a Royal Sqn? (Look what happened to HMY Britannia)..... No justification means that it can be cut OR become the sole play thing of senior ministers and misc. polititians.
The more likely scenario was that all the EW gizmos (chaff/flares) , DASS etc. were not needed and that a bog standard 146 would do well enough. This would allow the the other ac (doing other jobs in AFG or other dangerous places) to do the less glamorous work of 32 Sqn when they are
not always in the public's eye.
MB